On a photography tour in Finland

September 6, 2019

Photographer / Yuki Mizota

This time, I went on a photography tour of Finland, organized by Finnish Travel Fintours. This tour is held once a year, and this is the third time. Until now, we have been doing it during the white nights of early summer, but since the Northern Lights can be seen in September, this time we decided to use the two nights of the tour as a chance to see the Northern Lights, and headed to Rovaniemi, where Santa Claus is also located. The average temperature is 15 degrees. It's about 7 degrees at night, so you can aim for the Northern Lights without shivering.

Most of the tour members usually take snapshots, so some of us took this opportunity to purchase tripods and Markins Ball heads and Plates. For the portable folding tripod, we chose the Q3iTR KnobShoe Traveler Model, and for the regular tripod, we chose the Q3i Knob Shoe ball head, and each chose their favorite color. The cameras are SLR and mirrorless, and the manufacturers are Nikon, Fujifilm, and Olympus, so the plates were also adjusted to match the models. My ball head is the usual Q3i-BL blue ball head, but since the camera I used on this tour was a Nikon Z6, I combined the PN-Z7 (camera plate for Nikon Z7 Z6) and the LN-Z7 (subplate for Nikon Z7 Z6) to make an L-plate.

Tour members' cameras with Markins plates

On the night of the day, we drove to a pitch black forest. When taking pictures of the Northern Lights, it is common to set the lens to manual focus before it gets dark, focus on a distant view, and tape the focus ring to prevent it from moving, but since we arrived in Rovaniemi in the evening and had already eaten dinner, it was already completely dark. There were many stars above, and their beauty was incomparable to the night sky we usually look up at. Fortunately? There weren't many Northern Lights, so I think I was able to prepare for the shoot without rushing.
Now, the most important thing is to focus, but it's too dark to see. One theory is to zoom in on the LCD monitor and focus on the brightest star, but with an aperture of F4, it's a bit difficult to see. When one of the tour members said, "I can't see it well!", a veteran member became a star lol.
He turned on his headlight about 20m away and took the place of the star.
After focusing with autofocus, switch to manual focus and fix it, and you're good to go.

The aurora was just visible in the distance as a thin smoke, so I decided on the composition and took the picture by intuition. Since there was no movement in the aurora, I took the picture at ISO 3200, with the lens open at F4, and in 20 seconds.

The aurora was captured in a rainbow-like curve. It was clearer than what I could see with the naked eye. If you look closely, you can see the Milky Way on the right. There was no change in the aurora, so I changed the camera to a vertical position!

I illuminated my hands with the red light of the headlight, loosened the knob and switched the camera to vertical position. It's an L-plate, so I can take pictures immediately by simply changing the camera, and I thought that the convenience and time-savings were very useful in pitch black. It's easier than tilting the camera with the tripod head attached to change the vertical position and checking the horizontal and vertical to decide the composition again, and it avoids touching it by mistake and having to check the focus again, so it's suitable for me who is forgetful.

I was there for about an hour and a half, but that's all for today. Although I didn't see the aurora shimmering above my head, we all enjoyed taking pictures of the quiet night sky and the modest aurora. The aurora appears in Finland from September, and if there is no wind at the lake location, the aurora and stars are reflected on the lake surface like a mirror. I recommend it for people who don't like the cold lol. Now, as I write this field report, I'm thinking about going to Finland again to take pictures of the aurora.

Preparation for the next day's shoot

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