Photographing the Northern Lights in Iceland, and Editing Them

Few subjects test a photographer like the northern lights. The light is faint, it moves, it changes colour, and it appears in the middle of the night, often in freezing wind.

Iceland is one of the most popular places to try. The country is far enough north to see the aurora regularly, the landscape gives you strong foregrounds, and much of the island has very little light pollution once you leave the towns.

This guide covers both halves of the job: getting a usable image in the field, and editing it into something that looks like what you saw, not a neon poster.

When and where to look

The aurora is active all year, but you need darkness to see it. In Iceland the practical season runs from roughly September to April, when the nights are long enough.

Clouds matter as much as aurora activity. The Icelandic Met Office publishes an aurora forecast on its website that combines expected activity with a cloud cover map. Check it in the afternoon and again before you leave.

Get away from street lights. Even a few kilometres outside Reykjavík makes a difference, and in the countryside a dark spot is rarely far away. Look north, but be ready for the lights to stretch across the whole sky.

The gear you actually need

A camera that lets you set exposure manually, a wide lens and a sturdy tripod are the essentials. Phones have improved a lot with night modes, but a camera with a larger sensor still gives you more control.

A wide lens with a bright aperture, such as f/2.8 or faster, helps you gather light quickly. Bring spare batteries and keep them warm in an inside pocket, because cold drains them fast.

A head torch with a red light setting lets you see your settings without ruining your night vision. Gloves that allow you to work the camera buttons are worth their weight.

Camera settings to start with

Switch to manual mode and shoot in RAW. RAW files keep far more information than JPEGs, which you will need when you edit.

A good starting point is the widest aperture of your lens, ISO between 1600 and 3200, and a shutter speed between 5 and 15 seconds. Take a test shot, look at the result and adjust.

If the aurora is bright and moving fast, shorten the exposure so the curtains keep their shape. If it is faint and slow, you can expose longer or raise the ISO.

Focusing in the dark

Autofocus usually fails at night. Switch to manual focus and use live view, zoom in on a bright star and turn the focus ring until the star is as small and sharp as possible.

Do not trust the infinity mark on the lens. Many lenses focus slightly past it. Once you have found sharp focus, a piece of tape on the ring helps keep it there.

Composition with a foreground

The aurora alone can look abstract. A foreground gives scale and a sense of place: a mountain, a church, a frozen lake or a line of lava rocks.

Iceland is generous here. Coastlines, waterfalls and glacial lagoons can all frame the sky, and water can reflect the lights for a double image. Scout locations in daylight so you know where to stand when it is dark.

Keep the horizon low in the frame when the sky is the main subject. Leave space for the aurora to move.

Avoiding star trails

Long exposures turn stars into short lines because the Earth rotates. A common rule of thumb is to divide 500 by the focal length of your lens to get the longest exposure in seconds before trails show.

On a 20 mm lens that gives about 25 seconds. On high-resolution cameras you may need a shorter time. In practice, aurora shots usually need shorter exposures anyway, so star trails are rarely the main problem.

Shooting video and time-lapse

If the aurora is dancing, a time-lapse can show movement that a single frame cannot. Set the camera to take a frame every few seconds with the same settings, and let it run for twenty minutes or more.

Keep the exposure short so the motion stays smooth, and use manual white balance so the colour does not jump between frames. Many modern cameras can also film the aurora in real time when it is bright, though the footage will be noisier than stills.

Editing: start with white balance

Night photos straight from the camera often look too warm or too blue. Start your edit by setting white balance. Many photographers land somewhere around 3500 to 4500 Kelvin, which keeps the snow neutral and the aurora green.

Keep it believable. The typical aurora green comes from oxygen high in the atmosphere, and you will sometimes see red or purple at the edges. Pushing saturation too far makes the image look artificial.

If you work with colour in other contexts, the same eye for harmony applies. Our guide to colour theory for web designers explains why some colour combinations feel calm and others feel loud.

Exposure, contrast and noise

Next, adjust exposure and contrast. Lift the shadows slightly to bring out the landscape, but keep the night sky dark. A night photo that looks like daylight loses its atmosphere.

High ISO creates noise. Use noise reduction carefully, because too much makes the image soft and plastic. Some photographers take several frames and blend them to reduce noise, especially in the foreground.

Local adjustments help. Brush a little extra clarity into the aurora, or warm a lit cabin window, without changing the whole frame.

Building a palette from your photos

An aurora image makes a striking source for a colour palette, with deep blues, greens and the occasional magenta. If you want to reuse those colours in a design project, our article on how to create a colour palette from a photo walks through the process.

When you place text over a night photo, check readability. Light text on a dark sky usually works, but the green of the aurora can make some colour combinations hard to read. Our explainer on WCAG contrast ratios shows how to test it.

Staying safe on aurora nights

Winter driving in Iceland can be demanding. Check road conditions and weather before you leave, and never stop on the road itself to take pictures. Use parking areas and pull-outs.

Dress for long periods of standing still in the cold. Several layers, a warm hat and insulated boots make the difference between a pleasant night and a short one.

Tell someone where you are going if you head somewhere remote, and keep your phone charged.

Plan the trip around the sky

Aurora photography is mostly patience. You may wait hours and see nothing, then get ten minutes of intense activity. Staying several nights greatly improves your chances.

For ideas on routes, regions and what to do between aurora nights, NRF, a travel site about Iceland, is a good place to start planning.

From the field to the final image

A good aurora photo combines preparation and restraint. Get the basics right in the field: darkness, a steady tripod, sharp focus and RAW files.

Then edit with a light hand. The goal is an image that brings back the cold, the silence and the moving light, not one that looks like it came from another planet.

Cover photo: Chr Grundo / Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0.