My 3-minute music video, in 4K, features real-time videos of the Northern Lights, shot from locations in and around Yellowknife in Canada’s Northwest Territories in September 2019.
In this video there is no time-lapse and none of the sequences are sped up. The motion is as the eye saw it, though the camera, even in short exposures, picks up the colours better than the eye. Nevertheless, this provides a good approximation of what the eye sees during a good display of aurora.
The video also includes several still-image panoramas, in pan-and-scan “Ken Burns” moves.
I shot all the sequences from September 6 to 10, 2019, from sites within urban Yellowknife and from dark-sky locations along the Ingraham Trail that are favourite spots for aurora viewing and photography.
The music is the composition “Icefields” by the composer Steven Gutheinz. It is used by kind permission of West One Music. See stevengutheinz.com/music.htm
Special thanks to Stephen Bedingfield for the guiding and bear protection!
Website: amazingsky.com
eBook on Nightscape and Time-Lapse photography: amazingsky.com/ nightscapesbook.html
Blog: amazingsky.net
TECHNICAL:
I shot the real-time video clips with a Sony a7III camera and the Venus Optics 15mm lens at f/2 and (at the end) with the Sigma 8mm f/3.5 fish-eye lens, using the camera’s 4K movie mode at 24 frames per second for full-frame 4K. I used a dragged shutter speed of 1/8 to 1/15 second at ISO 12,800 to 51,200.
I processed all the movie clips through Adobe Photoshop for colour grading and noise reduction using the Camera Raw filter plus adjustment layers.