Taking pictures of Northern Lights is always a challenge. Ideally, you would want a short shutter speed and keep the ISO as low as possible. But often this doesn’t work and either of the two, or both, have to go up. I usually tell my guests to start with a shutter speed of 10 seconds, ISO 1600 and the aperture wide open (whatever that may be for their lens). And of course, use a tripod and remote or self-timer.

However, on a ship, it gets even more complicated. A tripod works excellent, but that is assuming you put it on a stable platform. Of course, a ship, especially when it’s sailing, is far from a stable platform. Using a ten-second shutter speed will result in very creative scribbly lines for the stars. This year was the first year where I had brought the Sigma 24mm f/1.4. This lens allowed me to use a much shorter shutter speed, down to two seconds. With calm seas, this turned out to be short enough for the stars to be dots (or at worst tiny lines). I was happily surprised by this result. I hope you enjoy.