It's a sight you'll never forget, something totally magical, eerie, spectacular... there are so many ways to describe the phenomenon of the Northern Lights. But once your holiday's over and you've travelled home, will you actually be able to remember the spectacle, the glow, the colour, or will the memories fade away? The best way to bring back the magic is to take plenty of photos and videos, and make the them good enough so they're worth having.

Every smartphone and camera will give you different results. Every aurora is different, as is every night sky. You'll probably find yourself experimenting with different settings to get the images you want. But here are some general tips for capturing the Northern Lights at their best.

Using your smartphone

Wondering how to take pictures and videos of the Northern Lights with smartphone technology? These gadgets aren't called smart for nothing... some of the cameras they contain are seriously good! 

The Northern Lights are not always very bright in photographic terms, but as long as you have a relatively new, high-quality smartphone you are sure to manage something decent. The same goes for your tablet.

Here are a few tips to help you:

• Make sure the lens is spotlessly clean.

• Turn off all the apps and messaging services so they can't interrupt you.

• Buy a tripod, or get clever and stand your phone on heaps of rocks. Otherwise your images will be blurred from hand movement.

• Look for night mode or other modes to enhance low-light images. Some of your pre-set settings might work – it's worth checking. Do you have a 'starry skies' setting?  

• If you have a 'pro mode' (aka manual settings), that's great. That means you can adjust the ISO and shutter speed. 

• Some phones don't have a manual mode, but you can try downloading an app to do it for you, one that gives you manual control.

• Make the ISO 800. You can go higher but the photos will get progressively more grainy.

• Try a 15-second exposure and go up from there if you need to.

• Another alternative is to capture in RAW format, which preserves more details for editing later.

• Of course make sure you avoid any kind of light pollution.

See what you get. Your images may turn out quite well. But you probably need a proper camera for truly great Northern Lights photography.

What about a DSLR – do you need it?

While you don't necessarily need a DSLR camera, a hybrid manual-digital machine, you do need a camera with actual controls. Most people leave their digital cameras on automatic, but remember to bring the instruction manual with you. It might be something you rarely use, if ever, but most good digital machines have a suite of manual menu settings designed to help you take great night photos, and they're well worth getting to grips with.

Here are tour top tips for photograph aurora using a decent digital or DSLR camera:

• Make sure your camera has manual settings

• A newer camera is best, one capable of delivering a high ISO setting. Your ISO setting depends on how much extra light you need and how the ISO affects your other settings, for example the aperture and shutter speed. As a rule the higher the ISO, the more light you capture, but the grainier the effect.

• A wide angle lens is a bonus, covering loads of sky. Set it to a fast aperture of f5 minimum, ideally f8.

• Turn on manual focus.

• Switch the flash off.

• Use a tripod to steady the camera – because the lights move across the sky, a tripod lets you set a longer exposure that remains clear.

• Pack spare batteries, since they lose power faster in the cold.

• Bring at least one memory card with you – it can take a while to get the perfect shot and you don't want to run out of juice! 

• Focus is vital. If you have an infinity setting, use that and adjust things from there.

• It's handy to focus the lens during the day if you can, it's so much easier than doing it at night. If that's not possible, choose a bright star or planet in the night sky and use this as your focus marker.

• You don't know how bright the lights will be until they arrive. When the aurora you see is bright and moving fast, set a shutter speed of 5 to 10 seconds. If the aurora is moving slowly try 12 to 20 seconds. If it's very faint you might need a long setting of 20 to 25 seconds.

• Set your white balance to daylight to stop your photos ending up too yellow or blue.

Ready to shoot? Now all you need to do is book your Northern Lights tour! Find out more here

Originally published 15 January 2019, updated 15 October 2023