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| Aurora Borealis November, 2025 Missoula, Montana |
From a relatively dark corner near my house, I was able to see and photograph the northern lights, despite the glow from the city. Using manual exposure mode and trying different exposure times was necessary to capture the flaming lights. Using 19mm focal length on a full-frame sensor, I opened the aperture to its widest setting at f/4, set the shutter speed to 10 seconds and used ISO 1600. By capturing a raw file, I was able to adjust the sky colors to remove the orange glow from the city and significantly reduce the digital noise. I also removed lots of distant house lights from the bottom of the image.
When you want to photograph in challenging lighting situations, manual exposure and raw capture are your friends. Learn how to set the exposure controls manually and edit a raw photo in my new class Advance Your Digital Photography, which begins September 1, 2026, at the Lifelong Learning Center in Missoula, Montana. Click here for more details and registration.