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garys760

Alaskan Nights

Canon EOS 5D Mark III

settings

Aperture f/2.8 ISO 1250 Shutter 6/1 Focal Length 16/1

location

Alaska, US

upload_date

Feb, 2019

Views

824

Likes

+85

Awards

Legendary Award

Judge Favorite

Celebrity Award

Contest Finalist in Isolated Cabins Photo Contest

Peer Award

+26

Absolute Masterpiece

+12

Top Choice

+11

Superb Composition

+10

Outstanding Creativity

Magnificent Capture

Emotions

Impressed

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Behind The Lens

Location

This photo was taken in Chena Hot Springs Alaska on the property of "Just Short of Magic Dog Camp". Following a day of dogsledding the Alaskan countryside the property owner graciously rented the small cabin for the night specifically to shoot the Aurora Borealis.

Time

This is definitly one of my favorite photos ever taken following a day of dog sledding adventures in the Alaskan countryside. The photo was taken at approximately 2:00am with the sled dog houses and small cabin in the scene as Mother Nature give us this amazing light show painting the night sky with brilliant colors of the Northern Lights.

Lighting

With cold and clear star filled skies, the white of the snow covered landscape and the moons light off in the distance the night sky provided all the lighting. With brilliant colors in the form of bright greens, purples and magenta the Aurora filled the skies providing all the light needed to capture this one of a kind image.

Equipment

This shot was taken with a Canon 5D Mark III full frame camera mounted on an Oben tripod with a 16-35mm F2 lens.

Inspiration

Alaska has always been one of my bucket list destinations specifically to shoot the Northern Lights. The Aurora is one of mother natures most awesome sights to witness and not everyone will have this opportunity to see such a grand spectacle taking place when the night sky, almost magically, fills itself with brilliant colors and designs. I wanted to capture this magic and share with those that are not so fortunate to witness such an event. This image is actually my best selling image and I believe captures a truly amazing scene in nature.

Editing

A single process was used to develope this photo in Lightroom. The raw file contained all the information needed on a single shot to bring out the colors and the image to tell the story taking place on this night. Very little processing was done to this image as I only had to bring out the vibrant color in the sky and the reflection of color against the snow covered ground.

In my camera bag

My camera bag has several go to items to capture most any scene for landscape photography. My full frame Canon 5D MarkIII camera provides excellent quality in a full frame camera. I carry 3 lenses, a 16-35mm f2 for wide angle, my 24-105mm f4 and a 100-400mm f5.6 long lens to fill frames and reach those long distance shots. Other items that never leave my camera bag are the Polarize filter to bring out color and reduce glare, a 3-stop neautral density and a 6-stop neautral density filter for long exposure images. My Canon camera mounts on a sturdy Oben, ball head tripod.

Feedback

The best advice I can give in this type shooting situation is to have a good quality wide angle lens, f2 or smaller. Camera requires to be manually focused so a good flashlight is needed to focus your scene at night on an object and lock your focus down. You will need to play with your camera settings ISO, your aperature set wide open to bring in the most light possible and play with the exposure time. This image in question was shot with a 16-35mm lens, f2.8, ISO 1250 and 6 second exposure time. I would also recommend that you have the noise reduction setting turned on in your camera settings to reduce noise in your images.

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garys760

garys760

Alaskan Nights

Behind The Lens

See more amazing photos, follow garys760

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