Aurora
Just back from a road trip with good friends of mine in the Lofoten islands. We had a couple of nights with strong aurora events, stronger than what I have seen on my previous trips to Lofoten.
Aurora, near Kilan in the Lofoten islands
Aurora Borealis - Skagsanden, Lofoten
And it was worth the wait. The Sky cleared and the aurora display was very nice and lasted for a couple of hours, on and off. From the series of images I got I selected this one. Yes, I have adjusted the image slightly. I have increased the luminosity contrast rather than the RGB contrast to avoid increasing the saturation too much.
Aurora at Skagsanden, Lofoten Islands
The aurora event I photographed from Flakstad, I posted an image from this event last week, did not last for long. I managed to get a couple of shots before it faded. And this is one of the images, with the Big Dipper (US), or Plough (UK), in the background.
And about a couple of hours after the sunset shot the aurora appeared through the thin cloud cover. It lasted for a short while before disappearing again, but I got a couple of nice shots.
Stunning images of bright and colourful aurora displays are all over the net. And for the first time I have seen some amazing displays of this mesmerising phenomena myself. I realised that the aurora may not be as colourful to the naked eye as some of the images you see may lead you to believe. There is, and this is a controversial issue for some regardless of subject matter, most certainly a lot of post processing applied to many of these images. Keep in mind though that the camera sensor is able to record colour in low light conditions when the human eye is more or less restricted to a monochromatic view of the scene. And don't forget the artistic license.
8 second exposure at ISO 800, 28mm lens @ f/2.8. The exposure is increased about one stop, and the saturation is increased slightly.