Gone to See Norway 2013. Chasing the Northern Lights. Day 14: Tromsø.
As the wormhole began to open clouds appeared, reducing the intensity of the burning green rays. This provided some cover and protection for earthlings below….
After leaving the two French Photographers at the Ferry to take them to Finnsnes, I decided to spend the next three nights outside of Tromsø to maximize my chance of viewing and photographing the Northern Lights. There were at least 20 vendors offering trips in Tromsø specifically to view Northern Lights. The most famous one is booked a year in advance (after being featured on a BBC TV program for finding a place to view the Northern Lights when the BBC film crew all but struck out). I eliminated the big tour bus, dinner boat, and dog sled northern light tours, and selected 3 based on recommendations at the Tromsø tourist information center. I am glad that I stopped at the tourist information center when the northbound Hurtigruten voyage stopped in Tromsø as the tours do get booked and fill up in advance. They all claim to find somewhere that is clear with a good chance of seeing northern lights – whether it is along the coast, up a mountain, or all the way to Sweden or Finland. One even tells you to bring your passport along if they do cross the border.
The first trip was “Aurora Photo Tour with Professional Photographer” from Creative Vacations, led by Vidar Dons Lindrupsen. He picked a group of seven up in front of the Blu Radisson Hotel and brought us to his house. There we had a workshop on the basics for successfully capturing Aurora images with a digital camera. Vidar is fluent in several languages. Our group included folks from France, Germany, Brazil, Spain plus myself from the United States. For those that needed, he provided tripods and warm arctic outerwear as we were about to spend the next several hours outdoors photographing the Northern Lights. We stopped at several locations and I got some great images These were some of the best northern light displays that I had ever seen, but probably average for folks that live in this region. When the clouds started to come in and we only were getting diffuse images through the clouds, Vidar served some hot lentil soup — very welcome after standing for several hours in the cold.
First stop was to Ersfjord, Kvaløya (Whale Island). I used a Nikon D800 camera and 24 mm f/1.4 lens. Other than some yellow (sodium) lights from a small village, the sky was very dark. Slide show, star trails, and a time-lapse video. We moved a bit and the band of green crossed the sky. I needed to switch to a wider angle lens — 16 mm f/2.8 fisheye. From the same location I also tried using the Nikon 1 V2 camera and 10 mm f/2.8 lens to see how Northern Lights would be captured with a smaller digital sensor. The images were rather noisy and needed extra processing with Topaz Define 2. Switched back to the Nikon D800 camera with the 16 mm f/2.8 fisheye lens in portrait mode
