Aurora Australis Naked Eye vs Sooc vs Edited
what aurora looks like in victoria by Daniel Gangur www.gippslandimages.com.au
nakedeye-sooc-edited
This question often comes up “What does the Aurora Australis really look like to the eye?”
In this post I’m going to give my interpretation of what a couple of Aurora’s looked like to me here in Victoria Australia, to my naked eye, in comparison to what the camera captured with no editing and what my final basic edited image looked like.
This may be different to what someone else may see, I believe some people can see more, some people can see less, especially in terms of colour. I also live in an area with little light pollution to the south or around me and this makes a big difference to what we can see in the night sky, you will see considerably less or nothing at all in a light polluted area.
NOTE – Not all Aurora is visible to the naked eye here in Victoria although the camera can capture them. All these examples were visible to my eye. The other thing to take into consideration when viewing these images is that they are all taken with wide angle lenses, we see much less in our field of view.
Above- Naked eye view of Aurora near the 90 mile beach Victoria.
Above – What my camera captured this is the RAW file with no editing at all.
Above – Edited final image.
As you can see there is quite a big difference between what I could see on the night, what my camera captured with no editing and my final edited image. Note – The image straight out of Camera is a RAW file with no settings applied in Camera other than white balance, i could achieve similar or the same as the final edit in camera using jpeg settings but its more flexible to do this in post processing on a computer.
Some more examples,
Above – Naked Eye view4/11/2015 Wilsons Promontory, Victoria, Australia
Above – SOOC 4/11/2015 Wilsons Promontory, Victoria, Australia.
Above – Edited 4/11/2015 Wilsons Promontory, Victoria, Australia
The above 3 images were taken at Wilsons Promontory, Victoria. The dark skies and southern location make it possibly the best location in Victoria for viewing Aurora. The images were taken on a gamble, I drove approx 3 hours to find clear skies and sat waiting for the skies to clear, it paid off. The white beams were clearly visible in these dark skies.
Above – Naked Eye View, Cape Paterson Victoria, Australia 27/10/2016
Above – SOOC Cape Paterson, Victoria, Australia
Above – Edited Cape Paterson, Victoria, Australia.
The above examples from Cape Paterson were taken on a meet that I organised for my Facebook group Gippsland Photographers With the help of Claire Stribbles Photography
We were extremely lucky to get a small display just visible to naked eye, you can see the rest of the group in these images on the right in the distance. This particular Aurora was quite difficult to see, very faint in the sky not helped by the Surf Life Saving Clubs lights behind me, lighting the foreground in these images. I’m sure the rest of the group on the point could see quit a bit more with their front row seats.
Above – The huge 23/6/2015 Aurora – Naked Eye, Dinner Plain, Victoria Australia.
Above – SOOC 23/6/2015 Dinner Plain, Victoria, Australia.
Above – Edited 23/6/2015 Dinner Plain Victoria.
These last three images are from the huge June 23 2015 Aurora and taken at Dinner Plain, Victoria, Australia. Although I’ve seen quite a few Aurora naked eye now the June 23 Aurora was the only one I have seen the actual colour so Ive tried to represent this accurately in the Naked eye edit, the beams were extremely intense white “pillars” in the sky and you could see the colour in the centre pulsing/intensifying it was incredible. I’m so glad I got to witness this although my location definitely wast the best for this.
I hope this helps people understand what can and can’t be seen when there is an Aurora here in Victoria, although I will say every Aurora is different this is just a few examples from my experience.
If you would like to know more about Aurora Australis and Night photography check out the following groups and links
Thanks for reading,
Australian Facebook Aurora Groups
Night Photography Facebook Groups
Nightscape Photographers Australia
Related links
Nightscape Photographer social media
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