Shooting Northern Lights on Film

Vancouver’s residents got a second chance to witness northern lights, a.k.a. aurora borealis, this year. And so, even cold-averse, city-dwelling photographers like me got their chance to see this incredible display without incurring any travel expenses.

I did a lot of research in preparation for the events. But despite the wealth of articles and videos about aurora borealis photography with digital cameras, none I saw mentioned the exact exposure settings, which are a must for film. This guide is made to fill this gap.

In this article, I’ll suggest the most appropriate film cameras, lenses, and accessories for photographing northern lights, the best film stocks for the job, exact exposure settings, as well as development and scanning techniques for the cleanest results on film.

In this guide: Why photograph northern lights on film? Best film cameras for photographing northern lights. Best lenses for photographing northern lights. Best film to photograph northern lights on. Other accessories. Picking location. Setting up and preparing for the show. Exposure values and settings. Film development and push processing. Scanning techniques. Support this blog & get premium features with GOLD memberships!

Thank you, Daren of Learn Film Photography, for getting me out of bed to photograph the show on October 10-11, 2024.

Why photograph northern lights on film?

Aside from being a fun challenge, film has unique properties that can make your images stand out in the sea of digital northern lights posts online. But that’s not even the best part about this medium.

Software and live previews make photographing the aurora borealis easy. However, the annoying side-effect of this convenience is the disconnect from the extraordinary event it introduces: bright screens decrease our eyes’ sensitivity to light at night, thus diminishing our ability to see the event clearly. How sad is it to experience such an incredible natural phenomenon through an LCD and not have a chance to appreciate it for yourself?

I’m confident you’ll have a better experience watching the northern lights with a film camera than you would surrounded by screens. But, of course, the process is more challenging, and the results aren’t guaranteed.

Best film cameras for photographing northern lights.

Medium — and large-format cameras can preserve more details on film, but they have some drawbacks that make photographing the northern lights challenging.

For best results, you will need a fast, wide-angle lens, which is often difficult or impossible to get on any body other than a 35mm film camera. Ideally, your glass has to have the largest aperture of 𝒇2.8 or wider and a focal length of 28mm or shorter. If you can match that on your medium format camera, go for it! Otherwise, you may like to stick to a 35mm SLR or a rangefinder. I used Canon F-1.

A rangefinder can be a great option since the finder on these types of cameras can be brighter in dim light than the through-the-lens view on an SLR. Alternatively, you may like to attach an external finder to your camera.

Whatever your pick is, your camera must have full manual controls and have the ability to keep its shutter open for 30 seconds for long exposures.

Best lenses for photographing northern lights.

Though capturing interesting shots with a 50mm lens or longer is possible, northern lights light up the entire sky. Grabbing a bigger slice of the show will typically give you a more interesting effect. With some exceptions, northern lights appear somewhat smudgy in real life, so there’s usually no sense trying to zoom in.

Thus, pick the widest, fastest lens you can afford. I used my Canon FD 24mm 𝒇2.8 lens for the images in this article.

Best film to photograph northern lights on.

The shorter your exposure, the more defined the northern lights appear on your film. If you hold your shutter open for a minute or longer, the sky will appear to have a uniform colour, which is cool but not necessarily representative of the actual effect seen in nature.

I used CineStill 800T for all the shots in this article. This film’s tungsten-balanced nature produced slightly bluer images, which isn’t particularly important (as it’s easy to correct in post). You may also consider the Kodak Portra 800. And if you’re lucky enough to have gotten your hands on the Fuji Natura 1600 and are willing to risk a roll, give that a try!

Naturally, all of the above recommendations are the highest-speed colour-negative films. But that’s not all: you will need to push those films to at least EI 1600 unless you have a very fast 𝒇1.4 lens, which may give you a decent effect with the native ISO 800 (even then, I’d rather just shoot with a faster shutter). I pushed my film to EI 3200.

Other accessories.

You will also need a tripod and a remote shutter release cable. These shots will not happen hand-held.

Also, consider dressing warm enough to spend an hour or more out in the cold of the night with exposed fingers. Last night, it was +10℃/50℉ in Vancouver, which pushed my wool jacket attire to the limit.

Picking location.

Northern lights do not happen every day — even if you live on the North Pole. I’m assuming you’re following forecasts and social media to learn when the event will occur and ensure that your skies are clear. However, your next most important part of the plan should be picking a location far from the city lights. Light pollution will diminish the effect. Ideally, you want to be outside the city limits, certainly not in the busy downtown.

Setting up and preparing for the show.

Once you’re at the location, you will probably need a flashlight to set up. You’ll need time to pick an interesting spot; I used trees and water to frame the sky. Once everything’s ready, you can fire a few test shots. But the best thing to do is wait 20-30 minutes for your eyes to adjust to the dim light without any flashlights. Once you’re used to the darkness, it’ll be easier to spot the best direction to point your camera towards, frame your shots through the viewfinder, and generally have a more awesome time observing aurora borealis.

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Exposure values and settings.

There are many guides on the internet for shooting northern lights, but they all assume you’re using a digital camera. Most of the advice I’ve read boils down to “look at the screen and see what you like.” That won’t work with film.

The settings I used for what I thought were the best shots in this article were a 30s shutter with an 𝒇2.8 aperture and an EI 3200 for film speed.

Keeping the shutter open for a minute or longer may’ve gotten less grainy results; however, that would also yield more smudging of the lights and the tree tops as they moved from the wind. It would probably get a much faster lens if I could change anything.

Daren’s digital camera suggested a four-second shutter time, which I also tried. This resulted in grainy, thin negatives (although the effect of the lights looked crisper). The problem with the digital light meter is that film has reciprocity failure, which it can not account for.

Reciprocity failure means that photographic film loses some of its sensitivity/speed when exposed for a prolonged time. For example, CineStill 800T will lose its sensitivity after 1s of exposure or longer. To calculate an actual exposure, the light meter value is generally transformed using the formula EV^1.3. Thus, the digital camera reading of 4s would translate to 6s. But of course, six seconds was still not enough in my practice, so I’m so glad I bracketed my shots.

A 30s shutter with an 𝒇2.8 aperture and an EI 3200 is a good starting point for all colour-negative films. Naturally, if you have a faster lens, you can change or shorten your shutter speed to add more definition to your northern lights effect. Another reason to shorten your shutter speed is to avoid star trails: as the earth rotates in space, the starfield shifts; with a 24mm lens, 15 seconds or longer will begin to add motion blur to the stars (of course, you may do the opposite and introduce star trails on purpose, but that will also blur northern lights for you).

You may also like to take a few shots at various times; changing your exposure by -2 or +2 stops shouldn’t adversely affect the results. After all, you’re taking photos of lights at night, which are guaranteed to have many exceptionally dark and bright spots. Unless you artificially light a part of your landscape.

Tip: I did not bother with a stopwatch to count the shutter time; instead, I mouthed “one-and, two-and, etc...”

Film development and push processing.

You will almost certainly need to push your film in development, a topic I covered in this article.

Scanning techniques.

A high-quality scan is paramount to getting interesting images of the northern lights. I recommend scanning your film as digital negatives and inverting manually for greater control over the results.

If you use the exposure settings I recommended above, you’ll get reasonably bright images, which can benefit from pulling back a little in the post (i.e., adjust the curves to add contrast and make the image slightly darker). You can also play around with colour balance to ensure that your results have a variety of shades instead of just looking green. However, you’ll need to balance your edits with the overall graininess, which will increase if the changes you make are significant.

Scans with many dark surfaces are also likely to show dust and scratches more easily, so you’ll need to remove them (this guide covers this).

Tip: Examine the direction your dust and scratches follow them on film to distinguish from the star trails to ensure you don’t remove any of the actual image material.

And that’s it! I hope you find this guide helpful. As always, please let me know what you think in the comments.