Christmas Lights

[John Liddle]

We spent Christmas away this year, in Levi, Finland.

On the last night, we were treated to a clear sky (unfortunately with a near full moon) and the best display of Northern Lights I have witnessed - just amazing and humbling.

The softening of the lights comes from the rapid movement of the "curtains" of light- I had never realised just how fast they come, go, mutate and change colour. At times, there were ripples of coloured flashes along the bottom of the curtains that looked like a rope of fairy lights changing colour.

Northern Lights - Levi, Finland by John Liddle, on Flickr

Northern Lights - Levi, Finland by John Liddle, on Flickr

[jimsphotography]

Re: Christmas Lights

Excellent work John. I particularly like the second image which I think would be worth you entering into APOTY 2016.
James

[John Liddle]

Re: Christmas Lights

James - thank you for your kind words and encouragement - I shall look into APOTY 2106.

[antoeknee]

Re: Christmas Lights

Excellent, Northern lights are fantastic to see and you've captured a brilliant display.

[Parsen66]

Re: Christmas Lights

Both fantastic shots of an awesome sight John

[ST-EOS]

Re: Christmas Lights

Great images John, well done

[Tigger]

Re: Christmas Lights

Excellent work John. I particularly like the second image

agree that second shot is stunning - the only thing have you added any lens correction? the trees either side look like they are leaning into the center, or maybe they were ?

[John Liddle]

Re: Christmas Lights

Anthony, Alan, Peter & Ian - thank you for your kind comments.

agree that second shot is stunning - the only thing have you added any lens correction? the trees either side look like they are leaning into the center, or maybe they were ?

Ian - this is something I wanted to look into more before posting the images, but I couldn't hold myself back! I have applied the lens profile corrections in LR (and I also tried the DPP ones), but although they did improve things, the peripheral distortion at the extreme short end of the lens range is still very obvious.

I know there must be a way of addressing this, but I am not sure as what the best course of action would be - any advice on this would be greatly appreciated.

[Tigger]

Re: Christmas Lights

Ian - this is something I wanted to look into more before posting the images, but I couldn't hold myself back! I have applied the lens profile corrections in LR (and I also tried the DPP ones), but although they did improve things, the peripheral distortion at the extreme short end of the lens range is still very obvious.

I know there must be a way of addressing this, but I am not sure as what the best course of action would be - any advice on this would be greatly appreciated.

I normally like you just apply the standard lens corrections, but in some cases it doesn't fully resolve the problem, so in LR you have a manual adjustment as well so try that as I've found sometimes that sorts the problem

[John Liddle]

Re: Christmas Lights

Solved! - the image below has been corrected using the distort feature in PS.

Is the change desirable, or should one just accept the image as produced by the camera?

5DJL5641-Edit-1 by John Liddle, on Flickr

[Tigger]

Re: Christmas Lights

thats much better, although ( sorry) by correcting it you've lost some of the snow off the bottom and I think that looks quite nice in the first edit - but its easily put right right in PS, and whilst doing that, maybe lighten the trees a tad ...then thats it honest ....

[@imagesBV]

Re: Christmas Lights

Amazing....the corrected version is better in my opinion, I'd be tempted to crop back to a landscape format though. But what a fantastic sight and experience. Thanks for sharing these.

[John Liddle]

Re: Christmas Lights

...then thats it honest ....

Well, as long as you really, really mean that's all.....

Final Version by John Liddle, on Flickr

[Tigger]

Re: Christmas Lights

nice +

[John Liddle]

Re: Christmas Lights

Brian, thank you for your comments, and just for you.....

Final Version (Landscape) by John Liddle, on Flickr