When the low cost carrier Ryanair announced direct flights from my local airport to Finnish Lapland, I immediately jumped at the chance. Previously only reachable by extortionately expensive ‘Santa Flights’ that aimed to bankrupt families just to see the Real Santa Claus!

With temperatures in the weeks leading up to our departure dropping to insanely low -40°C, I was both excited and apprehensive having never experienced anything like it. For the trip I packed one film, and one digital camera - The Canon EOS Kiss IIIL and Nikon D7000, and two rolls of film - Cinestill 800T and Flicfilm Aurora 800.

Arriving late in the evening, the first mission was to get some supplies from the supermarket, which involved a twenty minute walk down an empty street in magical conditions, -12° with every footstep crunching through the icy snow.

I loaded the Cinestill up first with the idea of shooting the Aurora 800 on the booked Northern Lights Trip in a couple of days time.

Day one was adrenalin filled with Snowmobiling through the incredibly beautiful forest, thrilling husky sleds and serene relaxing Reindeer sleigh rides, so photography took a back seat for the day.

The next morning the temperature dropped to -23°, and I headed out to photograph the railway station whilst it was still dark. This involved a twenty minute walk to the bus stop, where I lost track of time photographing the gas station and nearly missed the bus!

It is funny that on this morning - the coldest it was during the trip my Nikon DSLR was not having a good time with the grease in the lens thickening to a point where I could hardly zoom, the LCD panel was only partially visible and the shutter sounding like it was set on quiet mode when it wasn’t - but the 30 year old Canon EOS worked flawlessly! I had a similar experience on the Norwegian Fjords where the Nikon was struggling to focus, but my Canon EOS 500 had no issues at all. Full credit to the old EOS’s - they can take a lot.

After half an hour shooting around the station, I was fairing about as well as the Nikon, so made a sharp exit to the café to defrost with a coffee!

The day proper started with clear skies and glorious sunshine so we headed into the forest on foot, and to be honest you could point the camera anywhere and get a shot - it was just stunning. Northern Finland in February is just out of this world!

At the point I was starting to think about rattling off the second half of the Cinestill ready for the Northern Lights chasing trip in the evening, a Whatsapp came through cancelling it! Slightly annoying as the skies were completely clear, but maybe they knew something that we didn’t…

So with no tour, we sat in the sauna relaxing, and periodically checking Aurora and weather updates until it was looking good. Luckily the apartment was on the edge of the city, and only a short walk into a woodland. And then it happened…

Not wanting to waste the end of the Cinestill, I just rolled with it - chucked the Vivitar 19-35mm on and hoped for the best. Dialling in 20s at f3.5 and just firing off a few frames. Yes the colours are rubbish, and it is not a great composition, but I did capture the Aurora on film! My plan initially was to shoot the whole roll of Aurora 800 and vary shutter speeds between 8s-20s for each composition, but in this moment completely forgot!

The final mornings walk was to a railway crossing in the forest - these morning activities are my time when on family holidays when no-one can moan about me keep stopping for another photo!

Feeling like I should use the panorama mode at least once, these were the last shots from the trip. I didn’t even finish the roll of Cinestill, making me wish I had put the Aurora 800 in on day one.

I took so many images of this cute little bus stop, one of which left me on my back in a ditch covered in snow laughing hysterically hunting for a shoe at midnight!

Finland was absolutely magical, and I would love to return one day to explore some more of it. Unfortunately the time to return to the rain of the UK arrived to quickly…

Cinestill 800T in Finland

Is this the largest Chinon collection?