Capturing Auroras – A Photography Workshop in Luosto
Learning the basic skills and camera settings for photographing Aurora Borealis, the northern lights. An instructive presentation on how to capture them will be held at Tikkalaavu by bonfire with a guide. He will walk you through the settings of your camera and give helpful tips while the auroras might blazing in the sky. Bliss guide will wait for the clients at Hotel Luostotunturi's reception. After meet and greet, the guide will take the clients to Tikkalaavu, which is a mere 15 minute walk away. Once the group arrives to the venue, guide will do a short presentation about northern lights and basic camera settings. The guide will help the clients to set up the cameras so that everyone is ready to start shooting once the auroras present themselves! A helpful “Capturing Auroras” pocket-sized guide will be handed to all the participants. There will be hot berry juice available for all of the photographers.
Highlights
- Learn the basics of photographing the magnificent Aurora Borealis
What's included
- Use of tripod and headlamp for the workshop
- Hot berry beverages
- Instructing through the camera settings
- Guiding and storytelling
- “Capturing Auroras” pocket-sized guide
Meeting point
Lapland Hotels Luostotunturi reception, Luostontie 1, Luosto
Book this experience
Will I see the northern lights?
The straight answer: probably, if you give yourself a few nights — but nobody can promise it. Here is what the odds actually look like, what decides them, and exactly what we do about it.
What actually decides whether you see them
Three things, and only one of them is about the aurora itself. This is why two people in the same town on the same night have completely different trips.
The aurora is above the clouds. On most disappointing nights the lights were there and the sky was simply covered. Cloud is the single biggest factor, and it is local — 40 km can be the difference between overcast and clear.
Street lighting washes out weak displays. From a lit hotel car park you need a strong show to notice anything; from a dark lake or fell 20–30 minutes out of town, a faint arc is already visible to the eye.
One night is a coin toss no matter where you stay. Three nights is when the odds move firmly in your favour, because you only need one of them to break clear.
A faint aurora often reads as a pale grey-green band to the naked eye and only turns vivid green in a long-exposure photo. That is normal physics, not a weak display — and it is why our guides shoot for you.
What we do to maximise your chances
We cannot change the sky, but almost everything else on this list is a decision someone makes on the night.
- Guides check aurora and cloud forecasts through the evening and pick the departure point on the night, not in advance.
- Tours are mobile — if the sky closes in at the first spot, we drive to the nearest gap instead of waiting it out.
- We head away from town light to dark lakes, fells and forest clearings.
- Thermal overalls, boots, gloves and a hot drink so you can stay outside long enough to actually catch a display.
- Small groups, so the vehicle can move quickly when conditions change.
- Late-evening timing that covers the 21:00–01:00 window when activity most often peaks.
- Guides photograph the display for you, so a faint aurora still comes home as a real picture.
Use an aurora alert app while you are here
A good alert app tells you when it is worth stepping outside — useful on the nights you are not on a guided tour.
How aurora alert apps work
Satellites at the L1 point (NASA/NOAA's DSCOVR and ACE) measure the solar wind — its speed, density and the direction of the magnetic field it carries — about 30–60 minutes before it reaches Earth. That data feeds the app.
Finland has a dense network of ground magnetometers. When the aurora energises the sky above, the local magnetic field starts to swing. Apps built for Finland trigger on that local disturbance, which is far more reliable here than a global Kp number alone.
You set a sensitivity level and the app notifies you when activity crosses it, typically minutes before or as a display begins. You can usually set quiet hours so it only wakes you when it is genuinely worth it.
Activity is only half the story. Check the alert against a cloud forecast — if the sky above you is overcast, drive to a gap or wait. The apps show forecast and current conditions to help with exactly that call.
An alert means the aurora is likely active, not that it is visible from where you stand. Clouds, city lights and a bright moon can still hide it — and a quiet reading does not rule out a sudden substorm.
If the aurora doesn't appear
The northern lights are a natural phenomenon. We track the forecasts and take you where conditions look best, but nobody can control solar activity or the weather — and no honest operator can guarantee a sighting. We would rather tell you that up front than sell you a promise nobody can keep.
- There is no sighting guarantee on our aurora tours, and we will never claim one.
- The tour runs as described whether or not the lights appear — the drive, the guiding, the location and the equipment are what you are booking.
- Departures are cancelled for safety reasons, not for a quiet aurora forecast. If we cancel, you are refunded in full.
- Plan two or three aurora nights rather than one. It is the single most effective thing you can do.
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