Bucket List Photo
Given the northern lights show last night, I would have posted a recent photo, but I was stuck at work, so I thought I would upload an older photo instead.
Gear used: Sony A1 mk i, SEL20F18G.
Settings: 5s, f1.8, iso 1600.
I did not have time to optimize my settings for this shot. I was contemplating driving out to Banff National Park on the night of November 11, 2025. While the northern lights data was looking amazing, the forecast was showing heavy cloud coverage all over my city, and my drive to this location. I decided to take a chance, and drove out a little later than I would have liked to, but the sky was clear driving west. I stopped in the middle of my drive to admire the vibrant red colour I was seeing in the sky - it was visible to the naked eye while driving. I realized the weather forecast was not accurate, so I decided to take a chance to drive even further west to my desired location. This was one of my bucket list shots - I have attempted to take northern lights photos at this location on several occasions, only for the northern lights to be visible while facing the opposite direction of this lake/mountain.
When I arrived at the location, I was pretty disappointed to see the northern lights die out. This stretch of the national park has no cell reception, so I was unable to check to see if the northern lights would pick up in the near future. I decided to drive around a little to see if I could find other angles to shoot, but the lights were not visible, and the clouds were starting to roll in. Just as I was thinking of driving home, I took one last chance and drove back to the lake. Shortly after I set up my camera and tripod, the northern lights lit up the sky. The lights were so bright that the snow started to reflect the green and red colours of the sky; in that moment, I was in the middle of interval shooting. I decided it would be best to gamble without altering my camera settings - for this moment, I would have benefited from increasing the iso a little more. I had to increase exposure a little in post, but the noise from not properly exposing the photo was quite noticeable. Luckily, denoising has come a long way, and I was able to reduce the noise of this photo without losing too much detail.