Aurora reflection in the Koyukuk river, arctic, Alaska. Canon 1Ds Mark III, 24mm 1.4L II, 15 sec @ f/1.4, ISO 800.
People have a keen interest in the Aurora borealis images, so I’m posting another one from my recent Arctic photo tour. We had unusually warm temperatures, and in some parts of Western Alaska, all time record high temps were set. This is usually not favorable, since the snow melts and things look pretty brown. However, there is always a silver lining. The warm weather also means that the rivers have remained unfrozen for a little longer. And in this photo, it affords the chance for a beautiful reflection of the aurora in the water. Some of our other photo tour clients got some fantastic shots of this. At first I did not bring out my camera and tripod as I was helping the others. But I could resist no longer and ran to get my tripod and camera, I was a little late for the great stuff, but got a few nice ones.
On a more technical note, I used Canon’s new 24mm f1.4L II, a very fast lens. However, it is extremely difficult to achieve precision focus. My horizontal frames were soft but the vertical ones were pretty sharp. In my discussion with Canon CPS, they said that there are different vertical and horizontal focus adjustments on the camera and the lens. So, when I return from the next trip, the body and lens will go to them for tuning, and we shall see how much of an improvement results.
