I’ve just got back from a fantastic week and a bit in the South Island, and was very lucky to have perfect weather for most of the trip, as well as getting a lucky view of the Aurora Australis (Southern Lights) one night.
I was in Queenstown at the time, and a phone app I have which gives notifications when Aurora might be visible at your location alerted me that it was likely visible, so I grabbed my camera and tripod to try and photograph it, starting during the later stages of dusk. There were two different “types” that were fairly faint but just visible to the naked eye: a green glow that really looked like light pollution - although there were no large towns in exactly that direction, and it morphed over time changing shape - and blue streaks, gently pulsing over time.
With a long exposure, they are much more clearly visible.
A very magical experience.
I also managed to get some excellent views of Aoraki / Mt Cook.
Last night I made a more serious attempt at astrophotography of the Milky Way than my previous ones, using my new camera and lens I got a few months ago.
In comparison to my previous astrophotography attempts in years past, I’m pretty happy with the result, but I still need to work out a combination of the best ISO vs noise level to use for single exposures, and whether it’s worth stopping down all the way to f/2.8 or not with the lens.
The Samyang AF 14mm f/2.8 lens I recently bought for this purpose and used I’m not amazingly happy with from a technical/optical perspective - but I did purposefully get it as the cheaper option given the expenditure I’d already spent on new gear back in March, and knew from reviews what its downsides would be ahead of time, so that’s all on me: the vignetting at f/2.8 is very pronounced, and no software currently seems to have the exact profile built-in to correct that, but also it’s sharpest at around f/3.5, and exhibits a fair amount of coma in the corners until f/4.0.
But still, there’s just something about wide-angle photos of the night sky that seems very magical, and even at f/2.8 to my eye at least, it can capture images I’m personally very happy with:
The above photo was taken with a Canon EOS 5D Mk IV, with a Samyang AF 14mm f/2.8 lens, at ISO 2500 with an exposure time of 25 secs at aperture f/2.8.
