Aurora sample shot on video

[Greg Syverson]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NZwuX0Bd7ZY


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e8f5clALiQI

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XqALuhmEOME


Here is a sample of some auroras I shot on video. Someday I can wait to see how the RED camera will do. The clip was speeded up a lot. There is no fancy editing or music match. It is just to show the different actions.

The second link is a normal speed small clip

Greg Syverson

725

[ColinSmith]

Fantastic collection, and yup, it'll be very interesting to see what the Red makes of that as a subject.... were you using some kind of additive blend in post, or frame accumulation?

I'm interested to know what kind of exposure you need for aurora, as I am as far north as southern Alaska, and have never seen aurora so dramatic..... some day they will come, and I need to be ready ;-)

[Tom Lowe]

amazing! what kind of camera? what are the exposure times per frame?

[Alex Boothby]

Stunning Greg. I'd be interested in buying some of this from you if you manage to get it on 4K - if you're into that sort of thing. It would be a great addition to an fx element library. BTW - what is the music?

[Greg Syverson]

The cameras are sony VX2100 & DSR500. The VX2100 stuff was shot at 1/4 . In post I used a software by canopus that that helped blur the noise a little. Major work in editing to get the color up. The DVD I made called Alaska Up Close, the aurora looks pretty good. Can you amagine a 4k file with good low light and slow shutter. One of the other threads here someone suggested using a DSLR. I tried to explain that doing 8 to 20 seconds exposures, the action would be mised. Someday I hope for realtime aroura capture at normal speed. When the auroras get bright and really start moving is when you would need real time capture. Other times when they are slow moving you could do a couple seconds worth of exposure.

I will keep at it and keep trying new cameras every chance I get

Greg

[Tom Lowe]

The cameras are sony VX2100 & DSR500. The VX2100 stuff was shot at 1/4 .

What do you mean by this? 1/4 of a second?

I remember aiming my HVX at the stars at 1fps with a 360 shutter and all I got was pitch blackness.

[Greg Syverson]

I guess on the VX2100 the 1/4 is nothing more than frame accumulation. I am not an expert in this area.

[MikeHedge]

it's basically changing the shitter from the default 60th of a sec to 1/4th of a sec. Remember the Auroras give off more light than the stars. so I think it would work... I have done the same thing with my VX2100... very cool great work! PS Tom.... have you worked with the PClix? www.pclix.com

[Sanjin Jukic]

RED+Nikkor AF 28mm f/1.4 D could do it the same or even better.

http://spaceweb.oulu.fi/~petri/Repo_7.jpg
Beautiful northern lights (aurora borealis) captured around 21 UT March 19th, 2001, near Oulu, Finland.
(15 second exposure, Nikkor AF 28mm f/1.4 D wide open, Fuji RDP-III pushed 1 stop)

The photo belongs to this test at
http://spaceweb.oulu.fi/~petri/AF_Nikkor_28mm_f1.4D.html

[Tom Lowe]

15 seconds sounds reasonable that wide open, but 1/4 of a second??

[MikeHedge]

he did say that he did major work in editing for the color... so I imagine that the 1/4 of sec from the VX21000 was pretty dark before color correction, exposure correction, denoising etc.

[Greg Syverson]

I have a Nikon 50mm 1.2 , 35mm 1.4, 28mm 2.8, 14mm, 2.8. The 50mm 1.2 will be nice and fast but not really wide enough. The lens you mentions sounds good.

Below is shome shots I have taking with a 35mm Nikon SLR with the 50mm 1.2 and 35mm 1.4 lenses

[Ken Willinger]

Great looking shots. It's funny how some of the foreground actually looks like it is keyed. Must be the separation that the moving colors creates. Very nice!

[Greg Syverson]

Part of the problem is the low scan quality. The high res scans do not get put on the web.


http://www.gregsyverson.com

[Sanjin Jukic]

Greg, amazingly great. Terrific shots!!!

[Greg Syverson]

Here is a new one I just loaded. It is shot at 1/60th of a second.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0lIKTt6okJk