The strong solar storms that resulted in several days with incredible Northern Lights in the beginning of October 2024 has been one of the most beautiful and surreal things I’ve ever experienced. And I just can’t believe that the sky happened to be clear in Iceland for days so I didn’t miss any of the nights with strong aurora!

For some of these aurora chasing days I was able to borrow the SIGMA 14mm F1.4 DG DN | Art lens, which in my opinion is the best lens for Northern Lights available today. This is the fastest lens on the market (as other 14mm lenses from other brands have a maximum aperture of F1.8) and therefore perfect for capturing details in aurora and low light scenes. This lens gave
me the opportunity to stand/sit still for less seconds than any other lens would and therefore resulted in better quality images. My exposure time for the Northern Lights was also shorter and
I was able to capture more details in the lights with less noise.

I’m going to describe how I took two self-portraits with this lens below. I used my camera’s intervalometer to take both of them and even though it was very cold I was determined to do it in
my dress to get the ethereal shots I had in my mind.

SIGMA 14mm F1.4 DG DN | Art

This was an absolute dream shot that I never expected to get. After all, what are the chances for the aurora to show up exactly in that small part of sky that’s visible from the cave, especially
when the cave faces the South?

This solar storm began on October 8th, 2024, and reached the planet on October 10th, 2024, and resulted in a KP index 8 aurora that was even seen in countries like Spain. In Iceland it was colourful, vibrant and dancing all over the sky, but mostly in the South (plus Southeast and Southwest). The intense red in the aurora was visible with the naked eye and it was just unbelievable.

After shooting at a few different locations that night we stopped at the waterfall on the way home around 4am. There was still some faint aurora in the sky, so we decided to give it a try. I was
thrilled when I went behind the waterfall and saw that the aurora was visible from there!
It was extremely dark in the cave and the only light was actually coming from the aurora itself, so in order to get a good quality final photo I had to combine 3 exposures. One exposure for the
aurora (F1.4, 2.5 sec, ISO 1250), second exposure for myself (F1.4, 6 sec, ISO 10,000) and the last exposure cave and the landscape (F1.4, 60 sec, ISO 1000).

It was an unbelievable feeling to stand down by the waterfall in my dress. I could feel the spray on my skin and seeing the aurora dance through the waterfall was indescribable and something
I will never forget.
It was, of course, not easy to stand completely still for 6 seconds, but since I was very small in the frame, it worked out. If I would be using an F1.8 lens for this shoot, I would have needed to
stand still for 10 seconds with the same ISO, which is more difficult. And, of course, I was also happy with the extra details in the aurora due to the large aperture.

SIGMA 14mm F1.4 DG DN | Art

I scouted this location in daylight and then waited for a promising Northern Lights forecast and clear sky in that area, which finally happened on October 6th, 2024.

This was also a very challenging shot to take. Besides the technical challenges, it was also very cold and windy and I couldn’t arrange my dress the way I had planned due to the wind. The
aurora was faint and on the left side of the rock and I was so happy that the aurora was close to the rock and that I could go ahead with my planned composition. Once I climbed the rock,
something unbelievable happened. The aurora exploded and started dancing all over the sky while being perfectly lined up with the rock where I was sitting and it was mirroring the lines of
the rock texture. This was too good to be true!

Technically, I had to combine 2 exposures in order to have a high quality photo. The first exposure was for the aurora and myself (F1.4, 1.3 sec, ISO 1600) and the second one was for
the landscape (F2.8, 30 sec, ISO 2000). In addition, I also had to do focus stacking for the landscape as I really wanted to show and emphasize the beautiful leading lines and textures.

Thanks to SIGMA’s lens I was able to have a faster shutter speed for the exposure for myself and the aurora and therefore a sharper photo. It was definitely not easy to sit still there with the
freezing wind and with a different lens I would need to sit still for at least 2 more seconds.

In the end, I’m very happy with how these two photos turned out since both of them were big projects. I was lucky to be able to use this lens to have sharper and less noisy photos that I can
now print in a large format.