Photographing the aurora in Abisko
You do not need your own camera to come home from Abisko with aurora pictures, but you do need a few habits the cold will test. This guide covers what the photo tour lends, sensible starting settings, how far a phone gets you, and the tour where someone else takes the shot.
What the photo tour lends you
Lights Over Lapland's photo tour from ~$160 lends each guest a DSLR whose lens is preset for the aurora. Each kit also holds a tripod and a backpack. Warm overalls and a headlamp come in the same bundle.
The one thing you bring is an SD card of at least 4 GB. If you forget, the operator sells a 32 GB card for about 250 kronor, which saves the night but costs more than a card from home.
The group stops at eight, so the guide can check each camera. The teaching is basic though, aimed at getting a sharp frame rather than at a lesson in exposure.
A camera and tripod each, a guide for eight
Four hours with a DSLR set up for the aurora and hot lingonberry juice with snacks. The weather and forecast choose the method on the night.
Viator reviewers give it 4.9 from 500+ reviews, and GetYourGuide shows 4.6 from 90+. It is not for children under 10, and the listing says it is not wheelchair accessible.
Settings in plain words
Aurora photography is mostly about letting in as much light as you can without blur. A common starting point is manual focus set to infinity, the widest aperture the lens offers, and an ISO somewhere around 1600–3200.
Exposures of a few seconds usually work. A bright, fast-moving aurora wants the short end so its folds stay sharp, while a faint glow can take longer if the tripod is steady.
Autofocus tends to hunt in the dark, which is why manual focus matters. Focus on a distant light or a bright star, check the result zoomed in on the screen, then leave the ring alone.
White balance is a matter of taste. A setting around daylight or a little cooler keeps the snow neutral, and if you shoot in raw format you can change it later without losing anything.
Take a test frame and look at it, then change one thing at a time. The camera often records more color than your eyes see, so a pale arc overhead can come out green on the screen.
What a phone can manage
Recent phones with a night mode can catch a strong aurora, as long as the phone stays still. Hand-held shots blur, so the biggest difference comes from a small tripod or a phone clamp.
Turn off the flash, tap to focus on the far horizon, and let the night mode run its full count. Faint aurora is much harder for a phone, and the sky often comes out grainy.
On a tour that lends a DSLR, use the phone for the people shots and the borrowed camera for the sky. That splits the work and saves your phone battery for the walk back.
Batteries and the cold
Cold drains batteries fast, often far faster than you expect on a winter night. A camera that showed a full charge in the hotel can die after half an hour on a tripod.
Keep a spare battery in an inner pocket close to your body and swap it in when the first one fades. A drained battery often recovers some charge once it warms up again.
Phones suffer the same way. Carry yours inside your jacket between shots, and bring a small power bank, kept warm too. Our clothing guide covers which pockets stay warm under the layers.
Gloved hands on a cold tripod
Camera buttons are small and the night is cold, so bare fingers do not last long. Thin liner gloves under warm mittens let you slip the mittens off for a setting and back on between shots.
Set the tripod up on firm snow and press the legs down before you shoot. A two-second timer or a remote release stops the press of your finger from shaking the frame.
Metal tripod legs get painfully cold to touch. Carry the tripod by its padded section if it has one, and keep your hands off the metal parts.
Condensation when you go back indoors
Bringing a frozen camera straight into a warm room makes moisture form on the lens and inside the body. Put it in a closed bag before you go inside and let it warm slowly for an hour or so.
Take the memory card out first if you want to look at your pictures right away. That way the card warms quickly while the camera stays sealed.
Headlamps and the foreground
A white headlamp in someone's frame ruins a long exposure, and it costs everyone's night vision. Switch to the red setting if your lamp has one, and point it at the ground when you walk.
A picture of sky alone tends to look flat. Look for something to anchor the frame, such as a lit lávvu or a line of birches. The flat white of frozen Lake Torneträsk works too.
On the lake spots of the bus chase, still water before freeze-up can hold a reflection. Our page on why Abisko's sky clears describes the landscape around the village.
Someone else behind the camera
Explore Arctic's car chase from ~$146 turns the job around. A professional photographer guides the trip and shoots you with the aurora behind, then sends the digital photos after the tour.
Eight guests at most ride in the car, and it holds 4.9 from 80+ reviews on GetYourGuide. You get finished portraits but no lessons, so it suits couples more than people who want to learn.
No tour can promise pictures, because none can promise the aurora. If the sky stays shut, our plan for a cloudy night helps, and the price guide compares both photo options against the rest.