Hamnoy - Reine
Best Time: Sunrise, sunset, night - just always
Remarks: This Aurora Borealis shot was taken in Reine. If you are hunting the northern lights, I can recommend a forecast app. Similar to weather apps you get an idea of how strong and therewith how bright the lights will be. In this case, the Forecast wasn't that good, so I tried a darker beach spot nearby. After 2 hours in the cold, I packed my stuff and were driving back when the lights came back. So I decided to park in Reine and give it a shot and this is the result. This photo spot is located on a very tight bridge. There is just one line and the pedestrian is also super tight. Good news - nobody but photographers are walking on this bridge in the winter. Another huge issue is street lights. I was setting up my tripod and tried to shot super wide with 11mm. Unfortunatly, the light is reflecting in the lens and you get half white pictures. Good mitigation is using the handrail of the bridge to get your front lens into the shade. However, the Canon 11-14mm Lens is not fitting through the bars. I ended up coupling my lens and the camera through the bars from the handrail. Afterward, I put it on the tripod. Looked as complicated as described and all this during beautiful lights are in the sky and you don't know how long they last. Actually, I got exactly 10 shots before the lights disappear. I would have loved to had more time for setting up but sometimes you have to get what you get. I wish you luck.
GPS Location: 67°56'43.2"N 13°07'53.9"E
Skagsanden beach - Flakstad
Best Time: All day long
Remarks: Skagsanden Beach is famous for two things - the mountain you see in the background and the very round stones in the foreground. It is a long time exposure. To achieve longer exposure times I used a Lee Big Stopper (from my point of view the best filters - no I'm not sponsored). As the texture of the stones is so nice, I decided to go for black & white to have more focus on these details. Obviously, if you want to shot these kind of pictures you have to use a stable tripod. Unfortunalty, sand isn't a stable base. This is why you shoud try to position your tripod on these stones. Look at the picture of the setup. It is slippery, so what out for not falling into the super cold water.
GPS Location: 68°06'14.7"N 13°17'15.0"E
Haukland Beach - Haukland
Best Time: All day long
Remarks: Probably all the remarks from above are also valid for this one. It is a sand beach but with huge rocks where you can put your tripod on. In the winter, parking was super easy as there was nobody else there. I underestimated the tide. The water was rising during the shooting quite a bit. I felt it instantly when I tried to leave as my foot was frozen to one of the rocks but I saw it also in post-processing as the stone in the foreground got smaller and smaller. Maybe a general tip for northern lights. It is a bit similar to astrophotography. The longest decent exposure is 500 divided by your focal length. So if you shot with 16mmit would be 30sec. If you expose longer you will get star trails. As you see stars also in Aurora pictures, you should keep that in mind. In reality, I was shooting 15-20sec exposures with an ISO of 400-1600. ISO 400 was quite rare as the lights are not often that bright.
GPS Location: 68°11'51.9"N 13°31'40.4"E