Love the combination of clouds and aurora that you captured - agree with Paul Glover that your photographs stand out from the many others I have seen. I appreciate you pointing out the difference between viewing them with the naked eye and with the camera, I had presumed everyone was enjoying these saturated colored skies! Love that the camera can be a tool to see if the aurora is even happening to begin with - fascinating.
I posted this on my Facebook page and it seems to have struck a cord with people. I didn't write it, but edited it down a bit from the original to align with what I know about human vision. I don't know the source but think it must have been translated from French as they were talking about cones and sticks. Anyways, it's a good overview of the issue and explains the difference between camera sensors and human vision. You can verify this with any accredited source that talks about the rudimentaries of human vision.
"Why are the colours of the northern lights less visible to the naked eye?
The retina of the eye consists of cones and rods. Cones allow you to see colours, and are less sensitive in low light. In the dark, cones barely work and rods take over. Rods are more sensitive to low intensity light but they do not distinguish colour as well. As a result, our night vision tends towards grey.
With the naked eye you can tell the colours of an aurora when it's bright enough for the cones to work. Most of the time you see the aurora in shades of grey with some colourful tones that are visible on occasion when the intensity of the aurora is sufficient to make the cones react.
The sensor of a digital camera is composed of photocells that are colour-sensitive regardless of the intensity of light. Camera photocells also have the ability to accumulate light over a long period of time while cones and rods do so in only a fraction of a second."
My first semester of college I did what was called a Focus on 'Exploring the Mind' - took a great course on artificial intelligence (this was the year 2000!) and another course all about Human vision where rods and cones were discussed in depth. It was fascinating and everything you write here is true about the way the eye works. It's blowing my mind now to look back at this and reconcile it with the way the digital camera works and also acknowledge that we've been lied to visually with photographs of auroras! Of course the camera doesn't doesn't mimic what our eyes and brain are able to see, that has always been the case anyway but it is particularly pronounced here. Wonderful food for thought, thank you!
I honestly really like the mix of clouds and aurorae you ended up with. They're a little different to the other eleventy billion images I've seen over the last few days! "Midnight" is stunning, actually.
Wasn't able to get out to have a look Friday evening, unfortunately. I did take a quick look out a few times but our view to the north is, well... it's a 400-foot rise in elevation over about 500 feet of distance (we're at 2600 feet elevation on the south slope of a 2900 foot "mountain" with another 100 feet of trees all over it; north is something which happens to other people!)
Saturday night I did drive up to a nearby overlook, but was probably a couple of hours too late. I took a photo anyway, because why not.
Wow, I'd love to have that sort of height. I love having a little bit of vertical geography around, but our area is largely a post glacial landscape of tree covered rolling hills. We are mostly a sunrise/moonrise property here as we have trees on our north, south and west flanks, but I keep a large meadow cleared to our east which slopes away from the house. The property is some 40+ acres with half of it down a hill so out of sight for the most part. It rained here on Saturday so nada. Last night was clear but I didn't see anything. Still haven't had a chance to review the video footage I shot, but I'm not expecting anything. The last time I saw Northern Lights here in any appreciable way was in 2004, so it's far from a regular occurance.
Beautiful images, John. In a poetic way, when thinking about looking toward the sky, the expression “automatically focus to infinity” is really inspiring!
Thanks Perry. I tend to agree about the latter images. As often happens with me, I begin in great excitement and it takes me a while to calm down and just be with the subject. The first images seem a little contrived, like I'm trying too hard. Once i relax, the images come more naturally and often with better results. I was also having trouble with finding focus on the first few photos. Not usually a problem with a wide angle lens, but when it is as dark as this was, it can be a definite problem. My Panasonic had a feature where you click the lens mount button and it would automatically focus to infinity. I wish something similar existed on my Fuji.
Amazing photos, John. Sadly, the clouds ruined the eclipse and the aurora for us but I’ve enjoyed seeing what others have been able to capture.
Love the combination of clouds and aurora that you captured - agree with Paul Glover that your photographs stand out from the many others I have seen. I appreciate you pointing out the difference between viewing them with the naked eye and with the camera, I had presumed everyone was enjoying these saturated colored skies! Love that the camera can be a tool to see if the aurora is even happening to begin with - fascinating.
I posted this on my Facebook page and it seems to have struck a cord with people. I didn't write it, but edited it down a bit from the original to align with what I know about human vision. I don't know the source but think it must have been translated from French as they were talking about cones and sticks. Anyways, it's a good overview of the issue and explains the difference between camera sensors and human vision. You can verify this with any accredited source that talks about the rudimentaries of human vision.
"Why are the colours of the northern lights less visible to the naked eye?
The retina of the eye consists of cones and rods. Cones allow you to see colours, and are less sensitive in low light. In the dark, cones barely work and rods take over. Rods are more sensitive to low intensity light but they do not distinguish colour as well. As a result, our night vision tends towards grey.
With the naked eye you can tell the colours of an aurora when it's bright enough for the cones to work. Most of the time you see the aurora in shades of grey with some colourful tones that are visible on occasion when the intensity of the aurora is sufficient to make the cones react.
The sensor of a digital camera is composed of photocells that are colour-sensitive regardless of the intensity of light. Camera photocells also have the ability to accumulate light over a long period of time while cones and rods do so in only a fraction of a second."
My first semester of college I did what was called a Focus on 'Exploring the Mind' - took a great course on artificial intelligence (this was the year 2000!) and another course all about Human vision where rods and cones were discussed in depth. It was fascinating and everything you write here is true about the way the eye works. It's blowing my mind now to look back at this and reconcile it with the way the digital camera works and also acknowledge that we've been lied to visually with photographs of auroras! Of course the camera doesn't doesn't mimic what our eyes and brain are able to see, that has always been the case anyway but it is particularly pronounced here. Wonderful food for thought, thank you!
I honestly really like the mix of clouds and aurorae you ended up with. They're a little different to the other eleventy billion images I've seen over the last few days! "Midnight" is stunning, actually.
Wasn't able to get out to have a look Friday evening, unfortunately. I did take a quick look out a few times but our view to the north is, well... it's a 400-foot rise in elevation over about 500 feet of distance (we're at 2600 feet elevation on the south slope of a 2900 foot "mountain" with another 100 feet of trees all over it; north is something which happens to other people!)
Saturday night I did drive up to a nearby overlook, but was probably a couple of hours too late. I took a photo anyway, because why not.
Thanks Paul. "Eleventy Billion!" LOL
Wow, I'd love to have that sort of height. I love having a little bit of vertical geography around, but our area is largely a post glacial landscape of tree covered rolling hills. We are mostly a sunrise/moonrise property here as we have trees on our north, south and west flanks, but I keep a large meadow cleared to our east which slopes away from the house. The property is some 40+ acres with half of it down a hill so out of sight for the most part. It rained here on Saturday so nada. Last night was clear but I didn't see anything. Still haven't had a chance to review the video footage I shot, but I'm not expecting anything. The last time I saw Northern Lights here in any appreciable way was in 2004, so it's far from a regular occurance.
Beautiful images, John. In a poetic way, when thinking about looking toward the sky, the expression “automatically focus to infinity” is really inspiring!
Thank You Heidi. Sounds like something Buzz Lightyear would say.
Highly quotable!
You got some good photos here, John. The ones at midnight and after are the ones I like the most.
Thanks Perry. I tend to agree about the latter images. As often happens with me, I begin in great excitement and it takes me a while to calm down and just be with the subject. The first images seem a little contrived, like I'm trying too hard. Once i relax, the images come more naturally and often with better results. I was also having trouble with finding focus on the first few photos. Not usually a problem with a wide angle lens, but when it is as dark as this was, it can be a definite problem. My Panasonic had a feature where you click the lens mount button and it would automatically focus to infinity. I wish something similar existed on my Fuji.