Aurora Cam - a photo on Flickriver

Aurora Cam

My trusty "old" workhorse at work, Canon EOS 5D Mark II shooting a timelapse of the northern lights. Photo was taken with my new-to-me toy, the Panasonic GF1 with 20mm f/1.7 pancake lens. I mainly got it for snaps around the house and daily walkabouts. I'm getting extremely tired of lugging the 5D around (FYI, it has nothing to do with muscles, or lack of them!). The little camera is incredibly fun and easy to use and I was interested to see how it would manage the northern lights. It definitely has some pluses, but minuses as well.

Pluses:
20mm f/1.7 lens is extremely sharp at f/1.7
m4/3's small sensor size creates larger depth of field, keeping more landscape in focus with large apertures. (Small DOF with large aperture lenses on fullframe (f/1.4 for example) can present a real problem with auroras.)

Minuses:
Horrible dynamic range compared to 5D Mark II, I can't pull anything out really, shadows nor highlights in these conditions.
Difficult to ensure proper focus with focus-by-wire lenses, Olympus's new 12/2 seems to remedy that with it's focusing scale. Live view is difficult to work with in such darkness.

I'm really interested in the future of digital photography. I'm sure m4/3 will overcome most problems in the next year or two and surpass dSLR's altogether in sales, along with other mirrorless interchangeables. I wish Canon/Nikon will find a way to make their dSLR's compact like their ancestors were, such as the Canon AE-1 and Nikon F series. It should very well be possible.

PS. Really only relevant to my Icelandic flickr contacts, but I recently opened a new photo forum with a few friends, if you haven't checked out already, you should. It's at www.islenskljosmyndun.is or www.ilm.is for short.

Taken on: October 9, 2011

Tags:

aurora

borealis

lights

norðurljós

iceland

ísland

Þingvellir

Thingvellir

Manfrotto

X190XPROB

tripod

camera

Canon EOS 5D Mark II

Canon

dSLR

SLR

night

photography

Panasonic DMC-GF1

20mm

f/1.7

pancake

lens

Panasonic Lumix G 20mm F1.7 ASPH

Panasonic Lumix DMC-GF1

GF1 « less

Sets appears in: • Auroras

Groups appears in: • Night Images • Iceland. more » • Aurora (Borealis and Australis) • Íslenskir ljósmyndarar - Icelandic photographers • Flickr@Iceland « less

Camera: Panasonic DMC-GF1, f/1.7, 6 sec, 20mm (=40mm), ISO 400 (more info) (hide info)

Camera:	Panasonic DMC-GF1
Lens:	LUMIX G 20/F1.7
Aperture:	f/1.7
Exposure Time:	6
Focal Length:	20mm (35mm equivalent: 40mm)
ISO:	400
Exposure Bias:	0 EV
Flash:	Off, Did not fire
Exposure Program:	Manual
Exposure Mode:	Manual
Metering Mode:	Multi-segment
White Balance:	Auto
Gain Control:	High gain up
Color Space:	Uncalibrated
Software:	Adobe Photoshop Lightroom 3.4.1
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