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Aurora Borealis, baaaaaaby! The northern lights are one of our favorite things about this amazing planet, and in 2024/2025 the chances for seeing them will be even higher than normal.

This is Mother Nature at her absolute best, and you won’t want to miss them!

Please keep in mind, for those who expect cinema quality displays every time the aurora is out, you’ll probably be disappointed to discover sometimes they are very faint, or not even visible to the naked eye. But… they are highly visible to your camera, and the camera on your smartphone. And even complete noobs can take great pictures with their phone.

Now… to get pictures of the lights, you’ll be using a longer exposure, or lower shutter speed, and that requires holding your phone still for 30 seconds. Trying to hold your hand still for 30 seconds can produce some really blurry photos, so you’ll want to stabilize your phone while still being able to see the screen to take the shot. We prefer using a tripod, but use your human brain to figure out what else could work. Put your phone against a rock, or lay it flat on a fence and hit the button from below.

We use this specific tripod with ballhead, because it works for our DSLR camera as well. Fit it with a smartphone tripod mount and voila! If you don’t have a DSLR to worry about, you can get a smartphone all-in-one tripod kit.

As far as camera settings, the night mode on your smartphone might be all you need. I have a Samsung Galaxy S22, so I can only speak to my phone, but look for similar settings on yours, or ask Mr. Google for advice. Night mode is that little moon that shows up in the bottom right corner of my screen when the camera senses low light.

*If* you want to get more technical, you *could* use your Pro mode. To get this shot in Tucson last night, I went Pro, ISO 1000, with multi auto focus and a 30 second shutter speed.

I like to shoot with something in the foreground, like cactus or people, to give it some context and for something for the camera to focus on. To do that, first I light up the subject with my headlamp for a few seconds, and allow the camera to focus on that, instead of the endless night sky.

Here’s how I get a shot in 6 easy steps:

1. Check my camera settings to make sure it’s going to do what I want.
2. Light up my subject with a headlamp or flashlight.
3. Auto focus on that subject.
4. Turn my light off.
5. Hit the shutter button.
6. Wait patiently for 30 seconds.

Side story. Once upon a time we were sleeping in our van in Acadia National Park. I saw flashes of light outside, assumed it was lightning, and went back to sleep. The next morning we woke up to a huge photo spread and headline on the front of local paper “NORTHERN LIGHTS OVER MAINE!!!” (🎶 and that made me want to die…🎶) Now I have three aurora apps that give me notifications when the forecasts reach a certain probability, so I WILL NEVER MISS ANOTHER AURORA. End hysterics.

Apps I use for aurora notifications:
AuroraReach
AuroraNotifier
Aurora

Download an app or three, and punch Mother Nature’s subscribe button in the mouth!

Lights from my phone in Svalbard last winter:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

As we Warckens and that paleontologist from ‘Dinosaur Train’ say, get outside and get into nature!

Happy viewing, show me your pics.