“Celestial Lights” and “In The Land Of The Northern Lights” Timelapse by Ole C. Salomonsen

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Probably one of these days before I die, I have to come and check out the aurora in Norway. I’ve seen so many time-lapse videos of the northern lights, and every single one of them is always inspiring and different. For those who do not know, auroras are caused by solar activity. Our suns activity varies in 11 year cycles, and we are closing solar maximum (solar max) for our current solar cycle somewhere between 2012-2013, and solar activity has clearly been picking up.

I recently learned that in Japanese and Chinese culture, conceiving under the northern lights is considered very good luck. If you happen to visit an area where there’s a lot of aurora activities going on, chances are there will be a lot of “other activities” going on. Bow chicka bow wow.

For this video I did shoot approx 150.000 exposures from sept.2011 – april.2012 using Canon DSLR’s and various wide angle lenses. Approx 6.000 frames in this video. To achieve pannings I used the fantastic Stage Zero + MX2 controller time-lapse gear from Dynamic Perception.

The video is a merge of two parts; the first part contains some more wild and aggressive auroras, as well as a few milky way sequences, hence either auroras are moving fast because they are, or they are fast due to motion of the milky way / stars. Still, some of the strait up shots are very close to real-time speed, although auroras mostly are slower, she can also be FAST! The second part has some more slow and majestic auroras, where I have focused more on composition and foreground. The music should give you a clear indication of where you are

Gear used:
Canon EOS 5D Mark II, Canon EOS 5D Mark III, Canon EOS 7D
Canon 15mm f/2.8, Canon 24mm f/1.4 II, Canon 17-40 f/4, Nikon 14-24 f/2.8,Canon EF 16-35 L 2.8 Mark II
Samyang 14mm f/2.8, Samyang 24mm f/1.4, Tokina 11-16 2.8
Meade DS-2000 w 497 Autostar

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