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Shane Finnigan
{K:1990} 4/26/2005
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Hi Greg,
This is actually a really good shot! I mean REALLY good! I read your "about" section and I have to say I disagree with your assessment of your shot. Yes it is a bit grainy, but the colours are very good, and it was obviously taken by someone who knows how to compose a shot. You'd be surprised at the number of sky shots people take with no composing done. Next time you shoot, do it like you would any of your other shots in your portfolio. Remember to put context into the shot, like you did. Personally I love the cityscape you have. Secondly, if your not using a SLR type camera go for the longest exposure you can, and don't use any digital zoom as this reduces the pixel count. Try for the widest setting you have which should also be the largest aperture. Then try to keep the ISO as low as you can. The higher the ISO the higher the noise in the finished image. This is where I believe you got the graininess in your image. Overall I love the shot and wouldn't be at all disappointed see more like this  )
Great portfolio too!!!
Thanks for the comments!
Shane
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Mary Brown
{K:71879} 4/15/2005
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Hi Greg. Yes, Spaceweather.com is a great site. I have been on their email list for awhile. They have great information.
Take care, Mary
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greg collins
{K:12273} 4/11/2005
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Hi Mary thanks for viewing these photo's. Unfortantly my camera only has 15sec shutter speed and I've been told to get better shots I would need around 30 seconds. Have been waiting for another one to have a go with my old SLR on film. There is a real cool web site spaceweather.com which gives forecasts as to when and how strong. Also give other space info - like jupitar being around at the moment for photographing and also gives some photograpy hints.
Regards Greg
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Mary Brown
{K:71879} 4/11/2005
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You gotta love auroras. I'm so used to calling the Northern Lights. I have been waiting for a nice aurora since I got my camera, but no luck yet. The thing is, I don't know if I will be able to take a decent shot. I sure hope so. I'd be quite happy with one this good.
Mary
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Julia Abram
{K:480} 1/26/2005
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Greg,
What a wonderful image, I have never seen the northern lights here in Canada before "live" and have always wanted too, good job on shot notice. It must of been amazing to see.
Thanks for your comments.
julia
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Carmem A. Busko
{K:48785} 1/25/2005
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Congrats for viewing and registering it... and thank you for sharing it!!!
Carmem
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Michael Kanemoto
{K:22115} 1/25/2005
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Greg:
The only trick you can do is increase the exposure to the sky, and intentionally do some masking while the shutter is open by sticking your fingers in the frame for a timed interval and then removing them. You need an SLR to really get this right because you have to be able to see through the lens to position your hand correctly.
Sometimes paper will work. Think of it as a dodge while taking the picture.
The more expensive way is to invert a graduated filter.
If you use Neat Image - as a PS filter? Then I'd suggest masking out the town and getting the filter applied just to the sky perhaps - looks like the blurring lost the detailed lights of town. You could also use the Add Noise function to bring some grain back to cover your tracks...
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Pam Constable
{K:366} 1/5/2005
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Thank you for your comment on my mountains Greg, and thank you even MORE because I missed this, being sound asleep at the time. Beautiful sky! I wish I had seen it. Would a crop of most of the lights help as that is where my eye wants to go? Perhaps just leave the top of the hill at the right?
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Nedim Muhic
{K:14362} 1/4/2005
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Beautiful aurora photo. Very well composed and presented.
Regards from Sarajevo!
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Judi Liosatos
{K:34047} 12/30/2004
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Even so this is a beautiful image Greg.
Thankyou also for your wonderful comment on my image.
Judi
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Nando Mondino
{K:14261} 11/18/2004
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Great series!
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Graham Mulrooney
{K:15728} 11/17/2004
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Great shot with lovely eerie colour of the Southern Lights. I think the city lights makes this a great picture. Try selling it to your local authority it would look great on an office wall. 7++
I've just been looking at some Northern lights taken in Alaska. The images certainly get around on this site.
Regards,
Graham.
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Zeev Scharf
{K:25603} 11/14/2004
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My friend Greg,you did here an excellent job the capture is superb
Thanks for sharing
Many thanks for commenting on IR picture
Best regards
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Rebecca Raybon
{K:26654} 11/14/2004
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This is so totally awesome! The city lights were beautiful.. add that magic light in the sky, and it blows me away! Magnificent capture! Thank you so much for stopping to comment on one of mine, as it brought this and your work to my attention!
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Gaetan Chevalier
{K:4188} 11/13/2004
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Excellent work. I like the composition and the contrast between the city and the aurora. Great and original work, bravo.
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John Rogers
{K:-93} 11/12/2004
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You lucky devil. The framing is great and actually I think that the lights of the city turn it into an action shot. Well done
John Rogers
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Mary Vareli
{K:15826} 11/12/2004
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perfection...
i am impressed by the light!!
great work!
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dean jolly
{K:574} 11/11/2004
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hi greg. great to see you got such such a fantastic shot from the other nights show.i had a great look at them from under the hedge at home tried to take photo but my camera let me down.
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greg collins
{K:12273} 11/11/2004
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Hi Ryan.
This is awesome. Thanks for all your advise. I did download neat image but also realised that I have it on jasc photoshop 9. I have gone throught all my Aurore photo's and it has made a hugh difference. This site is great for sharing information. Thanks again.
Greg
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Ryan Greene
{K:3297} 11/11/2004
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Here you go Greg, I thought I'd give you a quick exapmle of a picture filtered through Neat Image...
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Neil Dolman
{K:26883} 11/11/2004
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Hi Greg, cool shot from Dunedin!!! I've never seen this. Here is a site i found with tips and tricks for the next time you get a chance.
Best wishes Neil
http://www.ptialaska.net/%7Ehutch/aurora.html
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Ian McIntosh
{K:42997} 11/11/2004
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A favourite passage from a favourite book...
Feel so priviledged to have seen it.
(Must get the pentax primed up for the next storm.)
It was in April, but for a second or two as he was coming awake in the strange room and the racket of big and little cousins' feet down the stairs, he thought of winter, because so often he'd been wakened like this, at this hour of sleep, by Pop, or Hogan, bundled outside still blinking through an overlay of dream into the cold to watch the Northern Lights.
They scared the @#*& out of him. Were the radiant curtains just about to swing open? What would the ghosts of the North, in their finery, have to show him?
But this was a spring night, and the sky was gusting red, warm-orange, the sirens howling in the valleys from Pittsfield, Lenox, and Lee neighbors stood out on their porches to stare up at the shower of sparks falling down on the mountainside ... "Like a meteor shower," they said, "Like cinders from the Fourth of July ..." it was 1931, and those were the comparisons. The embers fell on and on for five hours while kids dozed and grownups got to drink coffee and tell fire stories from other years.
But what Lights were these? What ghosts in command? And suppose, in the next moment, all of it, the complete night, -were to go out of control and curtains part to show us a winter no one has guessed at....
6:43:16 BDST in the sky right now here is the same unfolding, just about to break through, his face deepening with its light, everything about to rush away and he to lose himself, just as his countryside has ever proclaimed ... slender church steeples poised up and down all these autumn hillsides, white rockets about to fire, only seconds of countdown away, rose windows taking in Sunday light, elevating and washing the faces above the pulpits defining grace, swearing this is how it does happen yes the great bright hand reaching out of the cloud....
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Ian McIntosh
{K:42997} 11/11/2004
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Something that has haunted me since I read it years ago...
It was in April, but for a second or two as he was coming awake in the strange room and the racket of big and little cousins' feet down the stairs, he thought of winter, because so often he'd been wakened like this, at this hour of sleep, by Pop, or Hogan, bundled outside still blinking through an overlay of dream into the cold to watch the Northern Lights.
They scared the shit out of him. Were the radiant curtains just about to swing open? What would the ghosts of the North, in their finery, have to show him?
But this was a spring night, and the sky was gusting red, warm-orange, the sirens howling in the valleys from Pittsfield, Lenox, and Lee neighbors stood out on their porches to stare up at the shower of sparks falling down on the mountainside ... "Like a meteor shower," they said, "Like cinders from the Fourth of July ..." it was 1931, and those were the comparisons. The embers fell on and on for five hours while kids dozed and grownups got to drink coffee and tell fire stories from other years.
But what Lights were these? What ghosts in command? And suppose, in the next moment, all of it, the complete night, -were to go out of control and curtains part to show us a winter no one has guessed at....
6:43:16 BDST in the sky right now here is the same unfolding, just about to break through, his face deepening with its light, everything about to rush away and he to lose himself, just as his countryside has ever proclaimed ... slender church steeples poised up and down all these autumn hillsides, white rockets about to fire, only seconds of countdown away, rose windows taking in Sunday light, elevating and washing the faces above the pulpits defining grace, swearing this is how it does happen yes the great bright hand reaching out of the cloud....
Thomas Pynchon
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NN
{K:26787} 11/11/2004
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Wonderful ... one can never get enough of these lights - grainy or not! Thanks for sharing and thanks for your comment!
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John Lamb
{K:9687} 11/11/2004
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I missed this display Greg. Must keep alook out over the next couple of nights. The last big display I drove up to Lee Straem and it was spectacular. Thanks for posting. Cheers John
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Darrell Larose
{K:736} 11/11/2004
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Overall nice capture. I see you are using very basic equipment, but you managed to get a good feel of the aurora. There could be more as there has been a few more major solar flares today. These will take 24-36 hours to effect Earth. I found 30 seconds @f:4-6.3 worked for me. So at 15 secs try 2.8-4. And a solid tripod.
http://www.spaceweather.com.
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Kees and Carolyn
{K:15193} 11/11/2004
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Well, well, well! What a coincidence! I just put a couple of photos up of the Aurora Borealis. I like yours better! So yours are the Southern Lights rather than the Norther Lights?! Magnificent! I like the city lights below also, icing on the cake. Excellent capture!
Carolyn
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Mark Kresl
{K:9434} 11/10/2004
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This is really spectacular, Greg. Night shots are very difficult, but I think you did a fine job on this. I agree with Ryan that Neat Image may have helped. It is a very easy and effective way to deal with noise.
Mark
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Ryan Greene
{K:3297} 11/10/2004
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Hi Greg. It's not often we see pictures of the southern lights, only the northern. We're getting more aurora activity on Earth right now because of an active region on the sun. I think this shot is fine, I like it with the city lights, very beautiful. The grain/noise is probably a result of your camera, many digitals have this problem still. There is a great program called Neat Image that will help with this problem by filtering out digital noise. You can download a demo from their website.
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Margaret Sturgess
{K:49403} 11/10/2004
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I can't help with any technical advice, but I can say it is a wonderful shot, there have been several of these magical lights on in the last couple of day and I have enjoyed them all, how wonderful to have seen this spectacle.
Margaret
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