How to photograph the northern lights with your phone

Yes, a phone can capture the northern lights. The iPhone and Android settings that work, why a tripod matters more than the model, and common mistakes.

Yes, you can photograph the northern lights with a phone, and a recent smartphone will often surprise you. The secret is not the model. It is keeping the phone completely still, using Night mode or a manual mode with long exposures, and focusing at infinity. That gets you most of the way. The rest is detail, and here it is, the same way we explain it on the bus.

Before you leave the hotel

• Charge to 100% and bring a power bank. At −5 °C a phone battery can drop fast. Keep the phone in an inside pocket against your body and only take it out to shoot.
• A small tripod or a stand. Any phone tripod will do. Without one, use a rock, a backpack on the ground, anything solid. Hand-holding does not work for exposures of several seconds.
• Touchscreen gloves, or thin liners under thick gloves. You will be tapping the screen a lot.
• Clean the lens. One fingerprint turns every star into a smudge.
• Turn screen brightness down and the flash off. Flash does not light the sky, and it ruins everyone else's night vision.

iPhone settings

iPhones with Night mode (iPhone 11 onwards) switch it on automatically in low light. You will see a yellow icon with a number of seconds.

1. Rest the phone on something or mount it on the tripod. When the iPhone senses it is steady, it offers longer exposure times.
2. Tap the Night mode icon and slide the time to the maximum it allows.
3. Use the 3-second timer so tapping the shutter does not shake the shot.
4. Stay on the main lens (1x). It is usually the brightest. The ultra-wide (0.5x) fits more sky but gathers less light.
5. If your phone shoots RAW or ProRAW, switch it on. It gives you room to edit later.

Android settings (Pro or Manual mode)

Most mid-range and flagship Android phones have a Pro, Manual or Expert mode. That is where the difference is made.

Take a test shot and check the screen. All black? Raise the ISO or the time. Aurora showing up as a shapeless green blur? Shorten the exposure: it is moving faster than you are exposing it.

Composition: what makes a photo stand out

• Put something in the foreground. A church, a mountain, a person, a reflection in water. Sky alone, however pretty, looks like every other aurora photo.
• Keep the horizon low, in the bottom third. The show is above.
• Portraits under the aurora: the person has to stay still for the whole exposure. Light them for a second with a soft torch, never the flash.
• Skip digital zoom. You lose detail and light exactly when you need both.

Why your phone sees more colour than you do

It is normal for the photo to look much greener, sometimes with purples and reds, than what you saw. Human eyes are poor at colour in low light, while the sensor gathers light for several seconds. On faint nights the phone can reveal an arc that looked like a pale cloud to the naked eye. It is not a trick. It is the same aurora, seen for longer.

The mistakes we see most

1. Shooting from central Reykjavík. Too much light. It shows up, but washed out. We cover when the city is worth a try in northern lights from Reykjavík.
2. Watching the whole show through a screen. Look with your own eyes for the first few minutes. Then shoot.
3. Over-editing. A touch of contrast and some noise reduction is enough. Neon green gives it away.
4. Running out of battery right at the peak. It happens on every outing.

Why it is easier on a guided night

The hard part of an aurora photo is not the phone. It is being somewhere dark, under a clear patch of sky, at the moment the aurora switches on. On our northern lights hunt from Reykjavík the guide picks the route from the cloud cover and solar activity, helps you set up your phone or camera on the spot and, when conditions allow, takes souvenir photos of the group. It runs 4 to 5 hours, costs €99, and you reserve without paying anything up front: payment is taken 48 hours before. If we do not see the aurora on the first outing, the second one the next night is free.

First time chasing the lights? Start with our guide to the northern lights in Iceland, and for clothing read what to pack for Iceland in winter. Booking terms are in the FAQ.

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