Northern Lights

I had the luck of the Irish tonight while chasing the northern lights over Hamlin Lake with our manager Rachel and her sister Sarah. We were all fortunate to make images of the northern lights before they disappeared. My best image of the night was my first image. This was a St. Patrick's Day I will never forget.

Only a few times in more than 50 years of photographing the natural beauty of Michigan have I felt so humbled, so awe-struck, by a scene before me than I did while making this image. Witnessing the Northern Lights above Lake Michigan the evening of December 14, 2006, was truly a religious experience. Green lights danced through the northern sky above me, and waves broke over the Ludington South Breakwater ahead of me as I tried to hike my way to the end of the pier without getting washed off. I was able to safely get no further than the bend in the pier. It was so windy I dared not extend the legs of my tripod. Instead I knelt down, mounted my camera on the low, sturdy tripod and began shooting. I was as pumped as a hunter with a 10-point buck standing in front of him. But the best was yet to come. About 20 minutes later, at 8:35 p.m., neon-red Northern Lights appeared and began rocketing up and down in the western sky. For fewer than two minutes, the sky was glorious and up to four times brighter than before and afterward. My camera recorded the peak of the color and brightness during this 30-second time exposure. The exposure also recorded a meteor (upper right) streaking through the sky. Technically, this image is not all it could be. I had made the switch from film to digital cameras only a couple years before this rare photo opportunity presented itself. Like many other longtime professional photographers, it would take time to master exposure with this new digital technology. Even though the image looked excellent on the electronic playback on back of the camera, it was underexposed by more than a stop. Since then, I have learned to better understand and rely on the camera’s histogram, which is a true output measure of exposure. In addition, the sensors on digital cameras have vastly improved, and newer models tend to render high quality images at higher ISOs than in the past. Even with the most modern digital photography marvels, one thing I know from experience: nothing is more important in photography than the proper exposure. Still, I am grateful to have made this less than perfect image of the most intense, colorful Northern Lights I have ever witnessed.

"This Is Ludington" by Brad Reed My girlfriend Rachel texted me tonight that the northern lights were out. I rushed to my truck and drove down to Stearns Beach in Ludington. I walked as fast as I could out the pier hoping the dancing northern lights would last long enough for me to get the picture I had pre-visualized. Luckily for me, the light show lasted over an hour, and at times, was spectacular! Nikon D850. F5.6 at 91 seconds, ISO 800. 14-24mm lens at 14mm. On a tripod without a flash. 11:22pm on September 18, 2023.

On the walk back from Big Sable Point Lighthouse around 12:40am on Sunday, May 12th, my dad, Ethan, and I turned around and finally saw the northern lights show we had been waiting for all evening. The pillars shot straight up from the ground to above our heads. It was unbelievably bright and visible to the naked eye. Of course, the camera sees the colors even better than we do. This shot was just before the pillars shrank and disappeared. This is my dad’s photograph.

"Heavenly Glory” by Todd Reed Victory Trinity Lutheran Church has long been one of my photographic muses. My favorite country church came to mind while I was photographing the aurora borealis over Mount Epworth at Lincoln Lake. Rather than head home after finishing that image, I drove straight to the church a few miles away. I could see the color and rays of the Northern Lights clearly with my naked eye even before shutting off all my vehicle lights. I knew immediately my decision to come here instead of going home was a good one. I was especially pleased that the sanctuary lights had been left on even though no one appeared to be there. While shooting several time exposures to fine tune my composition and exposure, I watched two possums and seven deer cross the road and peacefully pass near me. I wonder if they were aware of the phenomenal sky I felt privileged to be witnessing. Nikon D850. F4, 130 seconds, 800 ISO. 24-70mm lens at 24mm. On a tripod without a flash. October 7, 2024 at 11:36pm.

As Brad and I were packing up our gear from shooting the comet, we could see slight color to the north in the night sky. We quickly realized it was the start of the Northern Lights! Back to the dunes we ran. In one capture, we were able to see the Milky Way, Comet NEOWISE, and the Northern Lights! What an amazing show!

A crazy story - As many people know, the news was predicting a good Northern Lights show for a lot of Michigan on Saturday evening, including the Ludington Area. Saturday afternoon during the Michigan State vs. Michigan game, my app, Aurora Pro, alerted me that the current KP was a 7. Of course, because it was mid-day and sunny, you couldn’t see the Northern Lights overhead. I have seen the Northern Lights in Ludington at least twenty times, but only twice with a KP of 7 or higher. Both of those shows were out of this world and the lights were super visible to the human eye. So after a fun family gathering at my dad and stepmom’s for pizza Saturday night, I eagerly headed to the Ludington State Park to try and photograph the Northern Lights. I put on all my warmest heavy weather gear and got into position 30 yards south of the Beach House and stood right on the Lake Michigan shoreline. I knew I couldn’t see the Northern Lights with my eyes, but thought maybe my camera would pick them up. I made my first exposure at 8:26pm. That exposure was 70 seconds long. The camera picked up no Northern Lights. I was bummed, but I shot a few more images just to be sure. Still no luck. It was a beautiful, cold, clear night and the stars and Milky Way looked beautiful. I decided to move my camera on the tripod and aim straight West and almost straight up above my head to capture a long exposure of the Milky Way. I had my camera on manual metering like always. I adjusted my shutter speed to the Bulb setting. I had my aperture at F8 and my ISO at 800. I had my camera set to mirror lockup. That way, once I pushed the trigger on my cable release and locked it in, my camera would “shoot” a picture as long as the trigger was locked. After a few minutes of standing next to my camera as it was exposing, I decided to lay down on the shoreline and use my camera bag as a pillow to watch for shooting stars as my camera continued to expose the night sky. In true Brad fashion, I quickly fell asleep. I slept for an hour and ten minutes or so and woke up a bit dazed and confused. That seems to happen a lot since having Covid a few weeks ago. I slowly came to my feet and reached over and grabbed my cable release and unlocked the trigger and ended my exposure. That exposure was 4,415 seconds. The image that appeared on the back of the camera was mostly white, but I could see that it had picked up some star trails. We always shoot in camera raw. My dad, Rachel, and I all shoot with Nikon D850 camera bodies. I usually shoot the Northern Lights with my Nikkor 14-24mm lens at 14mm and that was the lens I had used Saturday night. The way D-SLR cameras work is when you shoot in camera raw, the camera body has it’s own processor inside of it (which is kind of its own version of Photoshop). The camera processes that raw image and spits out a pretty horrible looking jpeg on the back of the LCD screen. Those bad looking jpegs on the LCD screen always look washed out, anemic, with very little color, and “foggy”. We have learned to not base much in terms of quality off our LCD screens in the last 17 years of shooting digitally. I was not expecting much from my photo shoot Saturday night as I walked back to my truck. It was a nice night on the beach and it was a good nap. Fast forward to Monday afternoon. I finally downloaded my images yesterday at our gallery in downtown Ludington. I have attached a screen capture of the original raw file how it looked on the back of my camera and how it looked on my computer screen yesterday. You can see it looks white and washed out. Then I opened that raw file and made our standard moves to that image. You can see that screen capture as well. Again, these are our basic moves. The only three minor changes to this file versus our standard camera raw presets is I moved the clarity from 30 to 99. I moved the texture to 17 to help with the noise. I moved the blacks from -70 to -100. I moved the shadows from +70 to +100. These are standard moves for our Northern Light images. To my total shock, with those standard moves, the image showed an immense amount of red, orange, and yellow. The other cool thing I didn’t expect was that the stars seem to be moving in two different circles. I have never seen that before in one of our long exposure night sky images. Usually, the stars are all moving around the North Star. The other thing Rachel spotted instantly while looking at my computer screen with me was the giant red heart in the upper right portion of the photo. I am not a scientist or a Northern Lights expert, but I am pretty sure that my 73 and a half minute exposure did indeed pick up the Northern Lights.

Northern Reflections

Northern Reflections - Panoramic

"Heaven On Lincoln” by Todd Reed When the aurora borealis first appeared in the Ludington area Monday night, I quickly decided to make my first stop Lincoln Lake. I am so happy I did. The Northern lights were already visible when I arrived at Cartier Park. Shortly after I got my camera and tripod set up, the lights became more colorful. I made a quick test shot to see if my exposure was on target. It was. By then the colorful lights were dancing and reflecting on the water. I was in Lincoln Lake heaven! Nikon D850. F5.6 at 152 seconds, 800 ISO. 24-70mm lens at 24mm. On a tripod without a flash. 11:36pm on September 18, 2023.

Northern Lights At Big Sable Point

Northern Lights Over Epworth

Often times while I am photographing an extraordinary light show, I ponder what our human ancestors must have felt when they witnessed similar sights thousands of years ago. On December 14, 2006, as I stood on a dune inside the Ludington State Park and photographed the Aurora Borealis and an incredible meteor shower, I was overcome by a rush of emotions. The light show was so intense that it evoked a sense of fear in me. I knew nothing horrible was actually happening, but the sky was so turbulent that it still made me feel a bit uneasy. I imagine that our ancestors might have felt true fear because they didn't have the knowledge of modern science to explain what they were seeing.

At 4:32am this morning my cell phone woke me up with a text alert from my northern lights application Aurora Pro. It indicated that the current KP index over the Ludington area was a level 7. I then looked at the weather application on my phone and it said the skies over Ludington were currently clear. I shot out of bed and rushed to the Ludington State Park. From the top of the second tall dune north of the Beach House, I made this 40-minute exposure of northern lights over the dunes and Lake Michigan. Big Sable Point Lighthouse was also shining bright in the distance. I knew from experience, with a long enough exposure, the stars would appear to move in a circle around the North Star. It was a magical morning all alone on that dune today! Nikon D850. F4 at 2427 seconds, ISO 100. 14-24mm lens at 24mm. On a tripod without a flash. March 20, 2021, at 5:33am.

After getting several notices on our phones the last few days that the Northern Lights might be out on Sunday night and early Monday morning, my dad picked me up from my new house in Ludington around 9pm. We drove to Point Betsie Lighthouse just north of Frankfort, Michigan. Shortly after getting on location and figuring out where we wanted to shoot, my dad and I noticed a large white pillar of light appearing to the left of the lighthouse. A few moments later, the colors of the Northern Lights appeared. Luckily, my camera was taking an almost three-minute exposure during this time. By the end of the long exposure, the pillars were gone and the colors faded quickly. My dad and I stayed until 2am hoping they would come back. Once the clouds rolled in, we headed home with giant smiles on our faces because we were pretty sure we each got at least one nice photograph!

Solar Wind

This is my third photo from early Saturday morning of the northern lights and the Milky Way from the Ludington State Park. Big Sable Point Lighthouse is in the distance and the Lake Michigan shoreline is reflecting the lights. D850. F2.8 at 97 seconds, ISO 800. 14-24mm lens at 24mm. On a tripod without a flash. March 20, 2021 at 6:23am.

As I could see the northern lights with my naked eyes dancing in the background, I knew they would be reflected in the strangely calm Sauble River near the outlet into Lake Michigan. The three minute exposure captured the beauty I was experiencing. Nikon D850. F2.8 at 188 seconds, ISO 400. 14-24mm lens at 24mm. On a tripod without a flash. March 20, 2021.