Keeping Warm:

Safety First!  The most important part to being comfortable & warm when dressing for winter conditions is to layer, layer, layer your clothing. While watching Nature’s great winter light shows the temperatures will fluctuate in varying degrees throughout the night.  Most of the enjoyment to aurora watching is standing out under the stars, in the cold crisp air, watching the whole sky. Observing aurora from inside a building or a vehicle, through a window, is just not the same.

 From the feet up:

1)      Bring several pairs of thick, wool or wool-blend socks.  There are also nice synthetic polypropylene socks available, which are great to layer your feet with, underneath those thick socks.

2)      Bring good winter boots!  Not leather hiking boots!  There are excellent warm winter boots      available in stores today.  Anything from Bunny Boots, to Moon Boots, to Snowmachine Boots are great to stay warm in.

3)      Good layering for your legs to your waist is some good polypropylene underwear.

4)      Good layering for your upper body and arms is also some good polypropylene underwear.

5)      Over your polypropylene underwear you can add another layer like a sweater, long sleeve wool or flannel shirt on top & pile pants, sweatpants or even jeans if you wish, as you still have some more layers to go.

6)      Your outer layering can be a full cover snowsuit (Best) or snow pants; such as insulated bib cover-alls or insulated waist-to-ankle snow pants.

7)      Winter coats of every type are available today.  Some are better than others.  They should be wind-proof, insulated & have a hood.

8)      Keeping your head warm is very important too.  I prefer a thick wool balaclava but again there are numerous head covers available today.  It is best to have a hat that is wind-proof, covers your ears well & doesn’t have an extended bill at the forehead (Doing photography with the bill of a hat is sometimes troubling.). 

9)      Some people’s faces get cold easily too.  There are neoprene, polypropylene or pile face- covers also available that are quite good.

10)   And finally we get to the protection of your hands and fingers.  Well-insulated mittens with polypropylene finger glove inserts are best, as the mittens allow your fingers to stay together inside.  They stay warmer this way & when you need to briefly extract your hands from your mittens to handle your camera or to do anything you will have that extra layer on your hands.  Pocket-warmers fit nicely in mittens too.

Photographic Equipment:

1)      At least one, better yet, two 35mm Single Lens Reflex Camera Bodies, preferably manual or manual-override because the cold can zap battery strength & freeze digital LED read-outs on electronic models.  Whatever your SLR camera body/bodies, you must have long exposure capabilities (i.e.; 10-45 seconds) or a ‘B’/Bulb setting.  You will be manipulating your exposures with an electronic or manual cable release.

2)      You should bring a good variety of your interchangeable SLR 35mm lenses.  For auroral photography you’ll want to bring lenses that typically have fast f-stops of 2.0, 1.8, 1.4 or 1.2 & range from 50mm to wider-angle 20mm or 16mm.  Longer lenses like 35-70mm, 80-200mm or 300mm & up will be good for daytime photography of magnificent Denali & the Alaska Range, superb scenery, Talkeetna & the beauty of the community & for those taking scenic flights up into the Alaska Range your wide angle lenses will work great.

     3)      A good sturdy tripod is a must.  A good pivotal tripod head with a quick release is also nice to have with you.

4)      At least one, preferably two (in case one breaks), cable releases.  12 to 18-inch cable releases will suffice.

5)      Filters!  Bring all you want, but you won’t be using them for night photography!

6)      Flash-use when taking aurora photographs is optional but not recommended. When others are trying to use the beautiful natural light of the aurora for their images, another person’s flash popping off can ruin their images.  Flashes are only used to brighten up something in the foreground with artificial light.  The aurora can be bright enough to read a newspaper & that natural lighting can & should be utilized only.  Snow is the highest reflective thing on earth & the colors of the aurora will reflect in the snow.  Flashes can be too bright on the snow-cover.  Quite often the outcome is undesirable.

7)      Bring a variety of your favorite films & plenty of it.  I prefer to shoot slide film but, many of you use print films and they work just fine too.  Slide films come back to you as a positive image that you can see your exact results on and negative films are subject to fluctuations when printing your prints, as you have no master image to match the final print with.  But you can be close.  I have been successful photographing the aurora with almost every available film on the market. 64, 100, 200, 400ASA films are typical of what most people use, even 800 to 1600ASA is used at times.  It’s all fun to play with!  My own preference is slow speed (100ASA) films because of the crispness of the image but once again, you should bring the variety of films you are ultimately comfortable with.

8)      Other items you may want to consider are: extra batteries, a small flashlight, a headlamp & extra bulbs for both, camera cleaning supplies, a notebook for notes & a pencil (ink quickly freezes), a micro-cassette recorder works great too, any tools you may need for your tripods or other gear, heat packs to insert in your gloves or boots & some strong Ziploc gallon freezer bags to separate your exposed film into & to put your cold-soaked camera inside to avoid condensation when you take the camera indoors.

9)      Video & Digital Video cameras are quite marginal when videotaping at night.  Unless they have very low-light capability, not much will show up in the final outcome.  I have seen some slight success with both types of equipment used at night but it’s not even close to the quality of still-photographs.  By all means bring your video equipment for daytime shooting though.  You won’t be disappointed there.

10)   Bring binoculars!  Not only for daytime observing but it is fun to look at the stars with.  The Alaskan night sky & constellations are amazing!

 This is a fairly comprehensive list of what your basic needs are.  If there is any other questions or comments regarding this list please feel free to contact me directly.  By bringing the essentials listed above, it will ensure your comfort & warmth throughout your adventure & also ensure your success in capturing on film the greatest shows on earth.