For the first time in my life I have experienced the Northern Lights. What makes this an even more magical sight is that fact that it happened on the island of Bornholm, where I live.
During the day, reports indicated there would be a high chance of seeing the lights from various places in Denmark, but it rarely reaches the latitude of Bornholm in the Baltic Sea. However, this night it turned out to be different. Around 10PM I was ready and waiting near Vang with my Nikon Z7II camera. I only waited a short while before the green lights appeared over the horizon and soon the dancing lights filled the Northern sky. What a fantastic and magical sight!
A composite photo taken with the Nikon Z7II + Samyang 14mm F2.8 and Sigma 35mm F1.14 Art.
I’m a sucker for new technology and the new mirrorless technology for cameras have been tempting me for some time. In December 2020 Nikon’s new flagship mirrorless camera – the Nikon Z7ii – was released and I became one of the first in Denmark to get hold of it.
Nikon Z7ii
Two years ago I switched from Nikon’s DX format to the full frame (FX) D810. The change also meant I started shooting in RAW, rather than .jpg, which involved not only learning a new camera, but also a whole new post-processing technique in Lightroom. My first photo session with the D810 was quite underwhelming because I couldn’t figure out why my photos looked so poor in the LED-display on the camera.
However, after learning the power of the RAW-format and spending lots of hours with Adobe Lightroom I slowly learned how to utilize the powerful Nikon FX-camera – and I have loved it ever since. During those two years, several of my photos have been used in magazines, in ads and on various websites, so I must have done something correct with both my shooting and edits.
Low light test with the Nikon Z7ii at the local harbour.
So switching to a new technology again, the mirrorless Nikon Z7ii, I am very prepared for a learning curve yet again. So I’ve started testing it in various situations with low light, wildlife and landscape photography.
Astrophotography with the Nikon Z7ii
On my birthday the skies suddenly cleared for a few hours at night, which gave me the chance to test the camera at astrophotography. I drove to Kultippen (a barren area on Bornholm island) and captured this selfie:
Kultippen, Bornholm
The photo was captured with a Samyang 14mm lens, which was fitted with an adaptor to the camera. Overall it seems to perform quite well.
Wildlife photography with the Nikon Z7ii
The following day I went for a trip in Almindingen forest on Bornholm, where I captured a small heard of bison amongst the trees using a Sigma 150-600m lens:
Bison crossing a clearing in the forest.
I experience quite a few problems with the auto-focus and the camera’s ISO went crazy. In the shot above I had the camera on auto-ISO and it set it to a whopping 8000. Luckily I could use Tropaz DeNoise AI to reduce the noise and it was acceptable for Instagram.
A 2nd bison crossing the clearing.
I took another shot of a 2nd bison in almost the same light with a fixed ISO of around 1200. It gave some post-processing noise in Lightroom, since I had to add more exposure. All in all, I think the camera was a bit overzealous with the ISO and lower could have done the trick.
Spotted some hikers in the forest.
Landscape photography with the Nikon Z7ii
On the way home I stopped at the ruins of a medieval castle to test the camera in the foggy environment. The result was quite decent, so I think the learning curve with regular landscape photography will be quite easy.
Lille Borg (English: Little Castle) in Almindingen Forest, Bornholm.
This month I have been on a quest: To capture a photo of the comet “C / 2020 F3” – also known as NEOWISE.
However, it proved harder than first imagined. The first night I could see the comet clearly and, following advice from experts on TV, I planned to photograph NEOWISE around 3-4 AM. As the clocked passed 3 AM I noticed the comet getting fainter in the sky.
The morning sky was beautiful and I took some photos of the sun rising above Bornholm’s landscapes.
On July 18 I ventured out a little after midnight and joined a fellow photographer for a final attempt at getting a good shot of the comet. This time we had more luck.
And as the sun starting to rise the morning sky transformed into a beautiful vista of colours.
