Cheers mate! I cannot tell you how much i enjoyed this post.
Aurora is a dream for me too. And maybe oneday i will get to experience these awesome northern lights.
I would like to ask one thing though, Why tripods to shoot them?
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It is indeed a true miracle, @cave-man, standing under it and feeling it with your whole body and mind... :) I forgot my vocabulary the first time I saw it :D
The tripod is, I would say, obligatory. It is dark as it's obviously happening at night, and the photos you see in my post, the shutter speed is between 2 and 8 seconds. You shoot at ISO between 800 and 1600, sometimes even 3200/6400. And I could hardly imagine anyone's hands not shaking for 2-8 seconds :D
It is a balance, to be honest. If you go with higher ISO values, you catch more stars and lights in your photos but the quality radically drops. I would say, the optimal value with the current DSLR or mirrorless cameras is about 1600, based on my experience.
I was blessed one more time to see the glorious Aurora Borealis, in Iceland, in August, quite unexpectedly :) I will write a separate photo-travel-story about it :)
My intention to asking that question was to know these details.
For my crop sensor based DSLR with shitty lens I also don't go above 1600. But owning a cheap low light prime lens f1.8 50mm has really hepled me to go upto 12800 and get good enough quality. But that comes with the side effect of not having a wide angle. Well, looks like being rich is only a option for me to get quality landscapes haha.
Thanks mate!
I'm not rich myself either (yet), I have to admit! :)
However, there are always options. 50mm f/1.8 is a great lens, generally. The biggest problem with it is that it is too long for landscapes, generally speaking. On a crop sensor, this is the full-frame equivalent of 75 mm (on a Nikon body) or 80 mm (Canon's crop factor is 1.6)
For my crop body, I use a Tokina 11-16mm f/2.8, which is a really stunning lens for its price!
The photos in my post are shot with Canon 5D Mark III and 16-35mm f/2.8 lens.
I am a huge fan of Canon myself, but I have to admit that the 11-16 mm Tokina is much better in some aspects, especially considering what you get for the price.