Finnland

Yo yo yo, Lionel Ceccavara here, I'm a Swiss Photographer from Basel. I just came back from Finnland, from Lappland to be more precise. I could go 7 days, i was not so lucky with the weather, but there were some good moments for photography. So the first day i arrived in Kittilä and it was -25 degrees, -15 Fahrenheit, so that was basically the coldest i've ever been. So let's starts with what i took with me to stand to be like 4-5 hours outside.

- very warm socks- longsleeved underwear- longleg underwear- gloves, liner and shell

• very warm boots- heating packs for the boots and the gloves- massive trousers- some Pullovers, - a warm coat, costs from 800 Euros to open end.- balaclava, nose protection, trapper hat.That was it for the clothes, now the gear needed for a trip like that:- body camera, maybe for Northern Lights not more that 24 Megapixel, I had my Canon R5 mark ii which has a 45 megapixel sensor, which is not so appropriate for low light conditions. But if you are shooting in RAW the denoising in lightroom makes it still possible to get perfect shots.- tripod / Dionys recommend the BH-55 Ball Head combine with the- lenses, i took for this trip 4 lenses with me. RF 10-20mm 4.0, 15-35mm 2.8 (the go to lens for Northern Lights), 24-70mm 2.8 and last but not least the 70-200mm 2.8. Nothing super fancy but you'll be ok with a setup like this. - CF-compact cards- SD-cards (not absolute needed, but if it's too cold and smth is not working, you have like still another option.- laptop to backup pics.- Powerbank (Power banks permitted on aircraft shouldn't have more than 27650mAH) and lensheater (very important for shooting under -15 degrees.) - stuff to clean the lenses- Camera belt.- forehead light (important, for outside night shooting.- several batteries, i had the following problem, at -20 degrees my bat. was blicking red, while i only took maybe 5 pictures with a full loaded bat. So i was stressed because i did not understand why a full loaded bat is so quick down. At home the bat was again showing, fully loaded.those things are a must have for this trip, you can also take like me an osmo cam and a insta360.1. So the first day we arrived and we had a little walk around our location. Nothing really special, just getting used to cold.2. the second day was still cloudy, so not the best light for nice pictures. We first went to the “swan spot”, that's how i would call it and the we moved to the National Parc. That was a lovely walk and i could start by shooting the first nice pictures of this trip.3. The third day started with a lovely sunrise, this spot was quiet amazing, the light was fantastic and we had a blast. After we went again to the “swan spot”, revisiting spot with different light conditions is important. SO REVISITE YOUR SPOTS. After we moved to a spot with a lot of snowy trees, here we had also amazing lights conditions.4. Unfortunately day 4 started again with very bad light conditions, So we were close to the Swedish border and we decided to look for some Reindeer.And you know what, we could find some. The main goal of the trip was to catch some Northern Lights. A cloudy sky makes this purpose not possible so we did some light painting, just to be occupied, nothing special.5. The fifth day was the best day, nice morning light, the afternoon was made of a walk in a fairytale landscape. And at night we could finally see some northern lights, the internet is full of nicer ones but we were happy at least to see some. Buuut, we had to wait over 2 hours by minus 20 degrees. So i was not super unhappy to head back home.6. the last day was again snowing and we decided to go to some fisher cabins near a frozen sea, it was magical to walk in untouched snow. It was again magical. 7. On our way home the pilots of Finnair were striking, to get back home i had to fly Kittilä – Helsinki – Prag – Zürich – train to Basel.

So trips like that are very much depending on the weather, we had like 1,5 days with good light conditions, the rest was waiting for better weather.

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