[Bad Hussar]

Just wondering if there are any photographers here who have experience with both DSLR and Mirrorless camera's, have a strong opinion on which one is best, and would be kind enough to share their thoughts. I'm looking to buy either an entry level DSLR like the Canon D650, or maybe go with a new mirrorless camera with a similar price tag.

Details:
1) I have very little experience with proper photography.
2) Is mainly for a project I'm considering. Which is spending a few weeks in Arctic Sweden to photograph the Aurora Borealis and create time lapse videos of the phenomenon by stringing together sequenced shots. Was there earlier this year Aurora hunting, but photography wasn't a priority at the time so didn't take a decent camera.
3) Outside temperature is often as low as -20 degrees celsius, and will be outside photographing for hours each night so battery life and resistance to cold would be an issue.
4) Would also like to be able to use it in other contexts as well, of course.

Reading through articles on the net has been useful, but still left me confused. The appeal of the mirrorless camera's is that they seem to do better at high ISO levels, but it's unclear whether they have other disadvantages that would negate this. Also, they seem to have many newer features like wifi and "remote control" as standard, whereas entry level DSLR's only have these as clunky add-on's.

Don't laugh. I know making a video like this is impossible with my (lack of) experience and camera budget, but everyone has to start somewhere, and this is the kind of video that inspires me and want to aim for:

This video, especially, got me taking mirrorless camera's more seriously. Standard video (i.e. not time lapse) taken with a Sony A7. Not as good as time lapse videos, but as far as I know it's generally considered "impossible" to take regular video of the Aurora with ANY consumer camera. So this video is really good.

[Engineer]

Awesome project - I got some good stills with an old nikon many years ago in Alaska. Still some of my favorite pictures of all time.

For the cold temps, try to get an external battery pack, or 12 V power supply. Have a second battery (or even third) ready to go, and a charger to top off the ones you're not using.

Check out astropix.com and cloudynights.com forum. Consider a used camera to get more bang for the buck. Practice as much as you can before the trip so you don't spend valuable vacation time learning the camera. Dress warm. Cold is the #1 enemy of winter astronomy.

Good luck and post some pix when you get back!

[The Great Basilisk]

Night photography has very little to do with the type of body and more with the type of lens. There are less variety of lenses and accessories for mirrorless cameras and their battery life is shorter because you can't shoot without the LCD screen so i'd probably go with a DSLR for this type of photography. One thing that matters in landscape photography is the field of view, which is smaller in crop frame DSLRs and higher in full frame DSLRs(35mm lens on a crop frame is about the same as 50mm lens on full frame). Generally for landscape photography you want to use wider lenses. Full frame cameras are more expensive though. And then what matters the most is how much light can get through the lens or how "fast" the lens is(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/F-number). On my Sony DSLR, i use pretty cheap prime lens DT 35mm F1.8 SAM which has focal ratio of 1.8. If your budget allows it, you can go lower than that to F1.4. Lens and camera options obviously vary depending on the brand.

The candle scenes in the film Barry London were shot without any extra lightning on f/0.7 lenses:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KkJZOxqB-qk

[Engineer]

(08-14-2015 09:12 AM)The Great Basilisk Wrote:  

Generally for landscape photography you want to use wider lenses. Full frame cameras are more expensive though. And then what matters the most is how much light can get through the lens or how "fast" the lens is(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/F-number).

Excellent point on lens speed - for auroras the lens quality isn't super important, so he could tolerate pincushion, purple fringing, vignetting, etc. A cheap wide field aftermarket lens with the highest speed is the way to go.

Also a steady tripod.

[Dr. Howard]

+1 on tripod and extra battery. I used to play around with night photography when I worked in Northern Canada and I used both dslr and mirrorless. Beyond what is said here, find something that has big, easy to operate buttons and controls that illuminate/backlight at night. When its -20 you don't want to be doing much with gloves off for long.

Also, if you are going out at night, make sure your gear is acclimatized...ie don't have it in the cabin/hotel and then walk outside to snap pictures. Water will condense on the mirror or lense and you'll get fog/frost on it.

[Espresso]

@Bad Hussar

Some general thoughts:

-If you want a time lapse video of the aurora like in that first video you posted, where the field of view changes as the time lapse goes on, you'll need some sort of a time-lapse slider, not a tripod. This would physically move the camera very slowly (either linearly or rotating) as it's automatically taking shots. If you use a tripod, you are stuck with a fixed scene; of course, you can pan across in post-production but it's not the same. If you go for the tripod option, make sure it's a real sturdy one - which generally means rather big and heavy, not a 'travel' kind of tripod.

-Make sure the camera you choose can do interval exposures for time-lapse, so automatically take a shot once every 30 seconds say. If it cannot, you can buy a programmable remote shutter release. Don't press the shutter button directly as it will cause camera shake - so either use the 'selfie' timer mode on your camera, the time-lapse option if your camera has one, or a remote shutter release.

-Have back-up batteries for everything, and keep them warm.

-You said a 'similarly priced' mirrorless. An a7 is full-frame and is not nearly in the same price range as a Canon 650d. You should consider the sony a6000 though. It's a crop-frame, like that Canon, and has good high ISO performance.

-You'll need a wide angle lens, that is fast. The faster the lens, the lower the ISO you can use, which means less noise and so better image quality. Of course you can do an extra long exposure and still use low ISO and a slow lens, BUT the problem here is that the aurora will become too blurry and the stars will start to turn into trails instead of points so there is a limit to how long your exposure can be here (~30s or less).

-Aurora tend to actually look better on camera than with the human eye since the camera can pick up more colour detail in low light, so that actually helps you as a photographer. Several years ago I got a half-decent shot of the aurora by using a flimsy tripod and a point-and-shoot in manual mode, so no reason you can't get great results. Happy shooting!

[Oneeyedjack]

Settings for photographing the Aurora Borealis are as follows:
- f2.8 or faster
- wide angle lens between 14 to 35mm
- SS of 5-30 sec depending on ISO
- Max ISO of 1600, preferably less
- cable release or self timer to reduce vibrations
- tripod

Either DLSR or Mirrorless camera would work. Having said that, the Sony A6000 is an excellent and inexpensive choice. The only disadvantage of mirrorless cameras in my opinion is that they have lower burst mode (5-6 shots/sec) compared to DSLR, hence not as good for sports or wildlife photography. The A6000, bursts up to 11 shots/sec and take great videos. With Sony, you can also download software for time-lapse photography, saving you loads of time and effort.

[GlobalMan]

DSLR or mirrorless isn't going to make a big difference, what you want is a larger sensor size if you're into night photography. A larger sensor = more light gathered. Pair that with a fast, prime lens.

Having said that, mirrorless cameras with sensors the size of aps-c sensor DSLR's are more expensive than DSLR's when I looked. You can get a new, grey market (meant for sale in another country than your own) Nikon d5200 for $400-$450. That's a lot of camera for the money.

Pair it with this lens: Nikon 35mm f/1.8G AF-S DX, $150-$200

[Bad Hussar]

Thanks for all the responses. Some really good info shared.

Engineer Wrote:

...
For the cold temps, try to get an external battery pack, or 12 V power supply. Have a second battery (or even third) ready to go, and a charger to top off the ones you're not using.

...

Good luck and post some pix when you get back!

I like the idea of an external battery pack. Will probably be wanting to take lots of shots each night so will need several battery's worth of power. Intend to go back to the same place as earlier in the year, and there is a heated hut on a mountain top specifically for Aurora viewers so I guess I can store a battery in there as well.

Will definitely post pics. Was considering posting a datasheet of the place earlier this year, but it is a really small resort in Sweden with, frankly, not much going on outside of Aurora watching so didn't really have any game related data.

The Great Basilisk Wrote:

Night photography has very little to do with the type of body and more with the type of lens. There are less variety of lenses and accessories for mirrorless cameras and their battery life is shorter because you can't shoot without the LCD screen so i'd probably go with a DSLR for this type of photography. One thing that matters in landscape photography is the field of view, which is smaller in crop frame DSLRs and higher in full frame DSLRs(35mm lens on a crop frame is about the same as 50mm lens on full frame). Generally for landscape photography you want to use wider lenses. Full frame cameras are more expensive though. And then what matters the most is how much light can get through the lens or how "fast" the lens is(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/F-number). On my Sony DSLR, i use pretty cheap prime lens DT 35mm F1.8 SAM which has focal ratio of 1.8. If your budget allows it, you can go lower than that to F1.4. Lens and camera options obviously vary depending on the brand.

Yep. Will definitely have to get another non-standard lens. Good to know there are some reasonably priced ones out there.

Engineer Wrote:

The Great Basilisk Wrote:
...

Also a steady tripod.

Haha. Oh yes. Once I was nearly blown off my feet myself. The main location I have in mind is sort of on the crest of a hill.

Espresso Wrote:

...

-You'll need a wide angle lens, that is fast. The faster the lens, the lower the ISO you can use, which means less noise and so better image quality. Of course you can do an extra long exposure and still use low ISO and a slow lens, BUT the problem here is that the aurora will become too blurry and the stars will start to turn into trails instead of points so there is a limit to how long your exposure can be here (~30s or less).

-Aurora tend to actually look better on camera than with the human eye since the camera can pick up more colour detail in low light, so that actually helps you as a photographer. Several years ago I got a half-decent shot of the aurora by using a flimsy tripod and a point-and-shoot in manual mode, so no reason you can't get great results. Happy shooting!

Good info on the ISO and lens speed trade off. Seems like a fast lens is essential.

Ja. There were people taking pictures by the hotel (with all the light) rather than up and over the hill were it was pitch black. What looked like white "clouds" to the naked eye at the hotel appeared as a typical green Aurora up the hill. I kidded with them saying something like "Hey, you're cheating." Their justification was that the only way you could have people in the foreground of an Aurora shot and at least make out some of their features was if you had artificial light nearby. But if you just moved to an area that is dark enough what looked like white clouds near the hotel lights looked green. So in my opinion there are a lot of good Aurora pics out there that aren't cheats. For example, each frame of the first video I posted above is a reasonable likeness of what I saw with the naked eye. In terms of colour/brightness. Obviously the motion is significantly sped up. But that's time lapse.

Oneeyedjack Wrote:

Settings for photographing the Aurora Borealis are as follows:
- f2.8 or faster
- wide angle lens between 14 to 35mm
- SS of 5-30 sec depending on ISO
- Max ISO of 1600, preferably less
- cable release or self timer to reduce vibrations
- tripod

Either DLSR or Mirrorless camera would work. Having said that, the Sony A6000 is an excellent and inexpensive choice. The only disadvantage of mirrorless cameras in my opinion is that they have lower burst mode (5-6 shots/sec) compared to DSLR, hence not as good for sports or wildlife photography. The A6000, bursts up to 11 shots/sec and take great videos. With Sony, you can also download software for time-lapse photography, saving you loads of time and effort.

Have checked out the A6000. Specs look good. Though I think the lenses are pricier.

GlobalMan Wrote:

DSLR or mirrorless isn't going to make a big difference, what you want is a larger sensor size if you're into night photography. A larger sensor = more light gathered. Pair that with a fast, prime lens.

Having said that, mirrorless cameras with sensors the size of aps-c sensor DSLR's are more expensive than DSLR's when I looked. You can get a new, grey market (meant for sale in another country than your own) Nikon d5200 for $400-$450. That's a lot of camera for the money.

Pair it with this lens: Nikon 35mm f/1.8G AF-S DX, $150-$200

Would be very happy to get that combo at that price. No wifi or remote, though I'm unsure how critical these would be.

[Bad Hussar]

(08-14-2015 12:23 PM)Dr. Howard Wrote:  

+1 on tripod and extra battery. I used to play around with night photography when I worked in Northern Canada and I used both dslr and mirrorless. Beyond what is said here, find something that has big, easy to operate buttons and controls that illuminate/backlight at night. When its -20 you don't want to be doing much with gloves off for long.

Also, if you are going out at night, make sure your gear is acclimatized...ie don't have it in the cabin/hotel and then walk outside to snap pictures. Water will condense on the mirror or lense and you'll get fog/frost on it.

I've read about this. My planned strategy, at this point, is to take along loads of silica packets and sealable plastic bags. When packing up for the night seal the camera and lenses in the bag with the silica, then just leave them until the morning when they will certainly have returned to room temperature, Do you think that will be enough to deal with the moisture? Definitely don't want to wreck my camera. Like they say, it will become a very expensive, and large, pendant and chain hanging round your neck.