Time-lapse shooting.
If you can't shoot video, you can still keep the night's dance — frame by frame.
Video is thousands of frames shot one after another at a frame rate (24, 30, 60…). If you don't have a good video recorder, you reach the same result with a camera or action cam through time-lapse: frames taken at set intervals are stitched together afterward.
Plan the frame.
In a time-lapse the camera is fixed, so you must compose the frame correctly from the start. At a certain point in the night the northern lights enter from one edge of the frame and flow toward the other — the angle you set your tripod at decides the fate of the whole shoot.
A lot from a few frames.
Videos average 30 frames per second. Sometimes you have only 16 frames — by slowing this footage, which normally wouldn't last even a second, you turn hours of the night into a watchable flow.
+Added · 2024·Built-in intervalometerAlmost every mirrorless body now has a built-in intervalometer (Sony's “Interval Shooting,” Nikon's “Interval Timer Shooting,” Canon's “Interval Timer”). The old external cable remotes are no longer needed; you set the interval, frame count and start delay from the menu.+Added · 2024·LRTimelapse + flickerIn a time-lapse shot over hours, the most maddening problem is the flicker in frame brightness. The combination of LRTimelapse and Adobe Lightroom turns it into a smooth transition; it saves you hours of manual correction.- +LRTimelapse · flicker correction
- +Built-in intervalometer note
- ○Original · book edition