Northern Lights
When the solar wind interacts with the Earth’s magnetosphere, particles are released that result in ionisation and excitation of elements in the atmosphere. We see this effect as light of various colours in our night sky, named the Aurora. In the northern hemisphere this is referred to as Aurora Borealis, or the Northern Lights. The complex movements and beautiful colours can make for a breathtaking experience. The best Northern Lights experiences can be had close to the North Pole. But on occasion at lower altitudes this phenomenon can be seen as well. The visual experience is often a lot less impressive, but photographs can still capture some impressive moments.
On 19 January 2026 the Northern Lights could be observed from Groningen, The Netherlands, which has a latitude of 53° North. It is not often that we see this phenomenon at this latitude, so a perfect opportunity to make some shots. In the video below, some time lapses and a couple of images are combined.
From a photography perspective, it was all a bit of a make-shift operation, not quite sure what the best way was to photograph the Northern Lights. Things were made even more complex because with the naked eye it was sometimes hard to follow what was going on. Images were made using a Fujiflm GFX 100II medium format camera. Together with the 23mm wide-angle lens (full-frame equivalent 18 mm), there was a sufficient field of view to capture some impressive moments. The camera has great low-light performance and most images were shot at ISO3200 and f/4-f/5. These settings resulted in 2-8s exposures, which worked well. Unfortunately I had left the autofocus on, so in the video, you will see some pulsing from images that had different focus points selected. Processing was mostly done in Capture One and the video was created in FinalCut Pro X.