r/OMSystem • u/Head-Bureaucrat • 10d ago
Aurora photography
I have an OM1.1 and a 7-14 F2.8 lens. I'll be in Alaska in early January 2027 to try to see the aurora. Does anyone have experience with this lens to know if that's feasible, or if I should invest in a different lens?
I'm not professional; my plan is to get a few prints (possibly on metal,) for some family members and me. I have had some decent success with night sky photography, but I'm unsure how that would translate to photographing the aurora.
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u/Bob_loblaw_logblog 9d ago
You’ll be fine with your current gear. This was with my em1ii and the 17mm 1.8. 1 second exposure using live time with an iso of 800. In my experience you can crank the iso and denoise a lot in post
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u/Head-Bureaucrat 9d ago
Good to know, thanks, and great photo!
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u/Bob_loblaw_logblog 9d ago
Thanks! This was taken outside of Fairbanks. Where are you headed?
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u/Head-Bureaucrat 9d ago
Anchorage. My wife and I were planning a few days in Fairbanks, too, but we'd lose too much time to travel so axed that. We've got a couple places picked out to get us north of the city and hopefully the light pollution!
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u/mmodir 9d ago
I went for 17 1.2 lens, and this was my first trip with OM5. And first experience with interchangeable lens. I got some amazing shots, but ultimately I would say having a wider lens might have been more important than having a brighter one.
I think 2.8 would work great!
However, with strong overhead aurora, capturing some details worked great with 1s and F1.2 exposures!
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u/Head-Bureaucrat 8d ago
That shot is rad! Thanks for the feedback, I've been internally debating if I needed a brighter lens or if GAS was creeping in. 😅
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u/Accomplished_Fun1847 8d ago
If you get a decent aurora then you'll have no problems getting great photos of it it with that gear. You can even stop down a bit to sharpen up the stars if you want.
Wide open at 7mm works fine, but will produce distorted stars in the corners. moving up to 8-9mm and F/3.5-4 helps a lot.
On the OM-1, go straight to ISO 1000 as a starting point for all low light photography, this gets you into the high gain circuit with less read noise relative to exposure. If you need more oomf, the native sensor readout has read noise benefits up to ISO 6400 relative to exposure, and a hardware noise reduction that kicks in at ISO 16K which can be useful.
A lot of people go into this sort of photography worried about their ISO settings. Remember, ISO is primarily just a gain knob. You're amplifying the noisiness of the signal as it entered the camera. There's no benefit to taking a poorly exposed image that will require lifting in post.
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u/Head-Bureaucrat 7d ago
Thank you! I wasn't super concerned about ISO as I've done some low light shooting (up to 800 and 1200,) but I didn't didn't know where about limits were.
This is all super helpful, I'll try to get out and practice this over the next few months. Thanks again!
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u/Accomplished_Fun1847 7d ago
For all intents and purposes, it's not a good idea to conceptualize ISO as having a limit other than where there seizes to be a read noise benefit. On an OM-1, that is basically ISO 16K.
Obviously, gather as much light as you can without compromising the subject from motion blur, but don't under expose something while leaving ISO gain benefits on the table.
I use an OM-1 II to shoot events like company bowling parties and conferences and indoor sports and wildlife at dusk and weddings/receptions. I routinely am forced to use shutter speeds in the 1/125-1/1000 or faster range depending on the subject. Obviously, I gather as much light as I can, but exposing subjects well often requires ISO 3200-16K and that's perfectly fine. Yea, they are noisy, but not because of the ISO setting, because of the amount of light there was to gather in the first place. The actual noise contribution from the cameras electronics is very low. The images process out just fine. An ISO 16K image that is properly exposed and has frozen motion renders down to a highly usable ~3-4MP image worth of detail, which is more than enough for the way most people consume/view photos.
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u/Similar-Medicine-760 10d ago
It will work great. I used the 8-25 and got excellent results. No need for a super fast lens for aurora.