To be honest, I think that taking aurora photos on a ship would be a non-starter, particularly if you are at sea. Auroras can vary a lot in brightness, but an exposure of several seconds is always required. Further in most aurora photos you will want to have reasonably sharp stars. Getting good shots can be challenging on land, but on a moving platform I just don't think it will work. Does anybody have some aurora shots from a ship, to prove me wrong?

MrWinnieThePooh wrote:To be honest, I think that taking aurora photos on a ship would be a non-starter, particularly if you are at sea. Auroras can vary a lot in brightness, but an exposure of several seconds is always required. Further in most aurora photos you will want to have reasonably sharp stars. Getting good shots can be challenging on land, but on a moving platform I just don't think it will work. Does anybody have some aurora shots from a ship, to prove me wrong?We agree.Even a two-second exposure will require a steady ship, and that's short for aurora photography. Most of my aurora shots have been about eight seconds (with an f/2.8 lens) in order to keep ISO at a reasonably low level. However, with BSI sensors and AI noise reduction software, we can go to higher ISO than before, so two seconds is more reasonable today than just a few years back. Nevertheless, a moving, vibrating ship is going to offer some challenges. That said, I can understand why the OP wants to try it even though it may be difficult.

Obviously, shooting from a moving ship is not ideal, but if it's what you've handed, why not? For reference, here are two photos from a Hurtigruten trip in late September 2018 that is similar to your planned trip. Taken with D500 on a Gorillapod braced on ship. We were coming out of the inlet to Batsfjord (north of Kirkenes), so not in open sea. Not great photos, but representative of what to expect.D500, 1 sec at f/2.8 ISO 3200, 16mm (24mm equivalent)D500, 1 sec at f/2.8 ISO 3200, 16mm (24mm equivalent)

pe1125 wrote:Obviously, shooting from a moving ship is not ideal, but if it's what you've handed, why not? For reference, here are two photos from a Hurtigruten trip in late September 2018 that is similar to your planned trip. Taken with D500 on a Gorillapod braced on ship. We were coming out of the inlet to Batsfjord (north of Kirkenes), so not in open sea. Not great photos, but representative of what to expect.D500, 1 sec at f/2.8 ISO 3200, 16mm (24mm equivalent)D500, 1 sec at f/2.8 ISO 3200, 16mm (24mm equivalent)Thanks for adding samples from a Hurtigruten ship (literally meaning "fast route" even though it is far from a fast ship by modern standards).The first one has sharp stars, which shows it is in fact possible to get fully sharp images from such a ship, but the second shot is quite "shaken", and is an example of how I would anticipate (or should I say "fear") images could look like.

However short exposure, you may or may not get great results, but that should not stop you from trying.  Not sure what others do, but I had excellent results with 24mm F2.8 AIS and I'd use at F3.5....including still water on the pond....it certainly help to have parts of the land-trees.But, that was on the land....and you'll get to experience the other.  Good luck.

Rented the 14-24/2.8 and had my first aurora experience just 15 minutes ago, between Rørvik and Bønnøysund.14mm f/2.8 2" ISO 3200. Didn't even use the superclamp + ballhead I brought, just pressed the lens+grip against the ship railing in the hurry, focussed carefully and took a few shots. Stars are about as sharp as they get - now how to get rid of those clouds ...

Martin Datzinger wrote:Rented the 14-24/2.8 and had my first aurora experience just 15 minutes ago, between Rørvik and Bønnøysund.14mm f/2.8 2" ISO 3200. Didn't even use the superclamp + ballhead I brought, just pressed the lens+grip against the ship railing in the hurry, focussed carefully and took a few shots. Stars are about as sharp as they get - now how to get rid of those clouds ...Nice!  Must be a strong display?  You could try even shorter exposures.  Sometimes the display gets stronger over time.

Guess so, since colour could be seen through the clouds and immediately getting out on deck. The technical aspects are now least of my concerns - the lens is certainly wide and fast enough and dang sharp, the Z6 does nicely at ISO 3200, even at the high ADL setting, focus can be achieved with MF and magnification easily. One particularly positive aspect is that the ship produces zero vibrations. So now it is just a question ofiforwhenthe conditions allow for clearer shots - no clouds, comparable aurora strength and the same calm sea or preferrably land. We just crossed the arctic cirle and there are 6 nights left above it. Only thing I guess I can do now to raise my odds would be monitoring weather forecast and rent a local trip from one of the ports where we typically stay 2-3 hours around midnight.

Why did you end up renting the old AF-S Nikkor 14-24mm f/2.8G ?

I rented the Z 14-24/2.8 S - sorry if I was not precise enough about that.

Ah! That makes more sense.

Martin Datzinger wrote:Hi,I'm going to do a 12 day Norway coastal / fjord voyage with Havila (same route as the more famous Hurtigruten), starting on Sept. 30th. There is a certain chance to catch northern lights, esp on the way up, since there's no moon then and nights are already 11-12 hours long then. If I get to see them,I'll be on the moving boat most of the timeor in a city for 2-3 hours at most, too short to do a meaningful car trip to escape light pollution. I haven't got much of an idea how much the boat will be rocking, my impression is that it's rather stable if there isn't a storm. But it will be moving anyway, not too slowly at that, mostly in a straight line. Could be okay for those 2+ seconde exposure times one seems to have to expect at f/2.8, maybe even add some nice dynamism with moving land/sea vs a stable sky. Provided the ship doesn't actually vibrate too much.I'll bring myZ6 and a tripod. I'm not too much into UWA photography usually, so I don't have such a lens. Would love a small and affordable 16 or 18mm 2.8, but Nikon refuses to make one. My 24-120/4 and 50/1.8 certainly aren't the right tools for the job - so what do you think I should bring?I guess the main options are buying a Samyang 14/2.8 MF for around €400(which I think is justifyable for the trip and infrequent further use, given it's rather sharp)or renting the Nikon 20/1.8 for €170.I could rent the Nikon 14-24/2.8 for €290 as well plus there's the Laowa 15mm/2.0 MF for €900. But honestly - both of the latter options are too expensive.Would you go for shorter shutter speeds or wider FOV?Thank you for your opinions and best regards, MartinIs renting the 14-30 f/4 out of the question? I know it's not as fast as the 20mm or even the 24mm (being about 2 stops slower), but I've had good luck shooting the milkyway with the 14-30, and I assume the Aurora shouldn't be much harder and can be done with the 14-30. You may also want to consider the 14-24 Z if you're renting. IT may cost a bit more, but it will give you more flexibility. My only concern with 20mm is that I would call it borderlined narrow, and perhaps not wide enough in some cases, so I'd stick with something wider like a 14 or 16mm. Remember that on the wide end, a few mm in FL is noticeable.So to answer your question, I would go with a wider AOV (wider lens).  Plus if you want to get something in the foreground, like a landscape, it's nicer with a wider angle lens, like one that can go to 14 or 16mm.  With the 14-24 and 14-30 you have the flexibility to zoom in and out to change your compositions too whereas with a fixed FL, it may be harder, especially if you'll be shooting from a ship (which poses additional obstacles, such as movement and vibration causing potential softness in images).

sirhawkeye64 wrote:Martin Datzinger wrote:Hi,I'm going to do a 12 day Norway coastal / fjord voyage with Havila (same route as the more famous Hurtigruten), starting on Sept. 30th. There is a certain chance to catch northern lights, esp on the way up, since there's no moon then and nights are already 11-12 hours long then. If I get to see them,I'll be on the moving boat most of the timeor in a city for 2-3 hours at most, too short to do a meaningful car trip to escape light pollution. I haven't got much of an idea how much the boat will be rocking, my impression is that it's rather stable if there isn't a storm. But it will be moving anyway, not too slowly at that, mostly in a straight line. Could be okay for those 2+ seconde exposure times one seems to have to expect at f/2.8, maybe even add some nice dynamism with moving land/sea vs a stable sky. Provided the ship doesn't actually vibrate too much.I'll bring myZ6 and a tripod. I'm not too much into UWA photography usually, so I don't have such a lens. Would love a small and affordable 16 or 18mm 2.8, but Nikon refuses to make one. My 24-120/4 and 50/1.8 certainly aren't the right tools for the job - so what do you think I should bring?I guess the main options are buying a Samyang 14/2.8 MF for around €400(which I think is justifyable for the trip and infrequent further use, given it's rather sharp)or renting the Nikon 20/1.8 for €170.I could rent the Nikon 14-24/2.8 for €290 as well plus there's the Laowa 15mm/2.0 MF for €900. But honestly - both of the latter options are too expensive.Would you go for shorter shutter speeds or wider FOV?Thank you for your opinions and best regards, MartinIs renting the 14-30 f/4 out of the question? I know it's not as fast as the 20mm or even the 24mm (being about 2 stops slower), but I've had good luck shooting the milkyway with the 14-30, and I assume the Aurora shouldn't be much harder and can be done with the 14-30. You may also want to consider the 14-24 Z if you're renting. IT may cost a bit more, but it will give you more flexibility. My only concern with 20mm is that I would call it borderlined narrow, and perhaps not wide enough in some cases, so I'd stick with something wider like a 14 or 16mm. Remember that on the wide end, a few mm in FL is noticeable.So to answer your question, I would go with a wider AOV (wider lens). Plus if you want to get something in the foreground, like a landscape, it's nicer with a wider angle lens, like one that can go to 14 or 16mm. With the 14-24 and 14-30 you have the flexibility to zoom in and out to change your compositions too whereas with a fixed FL, it may be harder, especially if you'll be shooting from a ship (which poses additional obstacles, such as movement and vibration causing potential softness in images).Read some of the more recent posts by the OP.  He is currently on the boat and photographing the aurora using the 14-24 Z f/2.8 lens.

tl;dr Z6 + Z 14-24/2.8 S saved my butt and I'm happy.Results are in! The display went on from 9 to 10 PM about 3 hours north of Tromsø. I was a bit worried first since that was exactly the time when the sea got more rough and there was plenty of wind. Plus the fact that I couldn't bring my tripod with me due to luggage weight limits and the superclamp wouldn't mount anywhere on the ship's forward guardrail. But neither would have been an option in that crowd anyway and at one point I heard someone elses tripod blown or knocked over - ouch, hope there was no camera on top of it! It was really hard to keep a star in the magnified frame to focus on in the beginning. Turns out though, somehow the Z6's IBIS is so effective during a 2 seconds exposure with a 14mm focal length (at least for most of the frame), it solved all those problems for me. Least 1 out of 4 frames turned out with pixel perfect sharp stars almost regardless of where I pointed the camera at - as long as if it wasn't straight up. This time i've had ADL turned off for better exposure control. But the aurora was so strong, I could remain at ISO 3200 most of the time and in conjunction with heavy handed Lightroom noise reduction + shadow liftig I think the images came out clean and with as much detail as the aurora itself provided. Especially nice to see reds as well. At one point those were so strong, they could even be seen with the naked eye easily. Still wondering if shorter expusure times would have shown more cleanly defined streaks, but maybe I'll have the opportunity to find that out another night.I know in terms of composition and lack of a meaningful foreground, those may all be a bit boring and cliché, least compared to what pros on top of stable, elevated positions can achieve, but I'll be gladly hanging those on my own walls some day and that was the goal. 18 keepers ain't half bad IMHO and made the steep rental worth it already.Best regards, Martin

Impressive, especially considering it's hand-held.You have been lucky with the timing of your trip, too: both solar storm and clear sky.As I expected, all images are at the widest setting of the Z 14-24mm lens.If you want to squeeze out the best of your aurora shots (and other images at high ISO), I can highly recommend DxO PhotoLabEliteor PureRAW. Both use the same AI noise reduction system (DeepPrime = PureRAW inside PhotoLab). PureRAW is a stand-alone software which will let you save the processed NEF file as a DNG, which you then finalize in Lightroom or Photoshop, while PhotoLab is a full-blown photo editing software.

Martin Datzinger wrote:tl;dr Z6 + Z 14-24/2.8 S saved my butt and I'm happy.Results are in! .............................I know in terms of composition and lack of a meaningful foreground, those may all be a bit boring and cliché, least compared to what pros on top of stable, elevated positions can achieve, but I'll be gladly hanging those on my own walls some day and that was the goal. 18 keepers ain't half bad IMHO and made the steep rental worth it already.Best regards, MartinVery lovely shots Martin. I am glad you got the images for your wall display.Best regards, AIK

Martin Datzinger wrote:tl;dr Z6 + Z 14-24/2.8 S saved my butt and I'm happy.Results are in! The display went on from 9 to 10 PM about 3 hours north of Tromsø. I was a bit worried first since that was exactly the time when the sea got more rough and there was plenty of wind. Plus the fact that I couldn't bring my tripod with me due to luggage weight limits and the superclamp wouldn't mount anywhere on the ship's forward guardrail. But neither would have been an option in that crowd anyway and at one point I heard someone elses tripod blown or knocked over - ouch, hope there was no camera on top of it! It was really hard to keep a star in the magnified frame to focus on in the beginning. Turns out though, somehow the Z6's IBIS is so effective during a 2 seconds exposure with a 14mm focal length (at least for most of the frame), it solved all those problems for me. Least 1 out of 4 frames turned out with pixel perfect sharp stars almost regardless of where I pointed the camera at - as long as if it wasn't straight up. This time i've had ADL turned off for better exposure control. But the aurora was so strong, I could remain at ISO 3200 most of the time and in conjunction with heavy handed Lightroom noise reduction + shadow liftig I think the images came out clean and with as much detail as the aurora itself provided. Especially nice to see reds as well. At one point those were so strong, they could even be seen with the naked eye easily. Still wondering if shorter expusure times would have shown more cleanly defined streaks, but maybe I'll have the opportunity to find that out another night.I know in terms of composition and lack of a meaningful foreground, those may all be a bit boring and cliché, least compared to what pros on top of stable, elevated positions can achieve, but I'll be gladly hanging those on my own walls some day and that was the goal. 18 keepers ain't half bad IMHO and made the steep rental worth it already.Best regards, MartinBeautiful shots Martin!  Definitely worth the cost of renting of the lens.