Shooting a circle rainbow

B&Jdude · May 14, 2009

For only the third time in my life I saw a beautiful circle rainbow but couldn't figure out how to take a picture of it.

I happened to have an SRT-101 loaded with Fuji color film in the car, but couldn't figure out how to shoot the picture with the camera pointed straight overhead at the sun without overexposing so badly that the rainbow washed completely out. If I stopped way down, used a fast speed, put on a ND filter, or some combination thereof, I would underexpose the rainbow so badly it wouldn't show up on the picture.

Can one get one of those graduated center spot filters (like LF folks use with extra wide angle lenses) to tone down the sun while leaving the rainbow nice and bright?

Has anyone here shot one of those things and how did you do it? :confused:

Smiff

Christopher Walrath · May 14, 2009

Wirelessly posted (BlackBerry9000/4.6.0.167 Profile/MIDP-2.0 Configuration/CLDC-1.1 VendorID/102 UP.Link/6.3.0.0.0)

Or just expose for the rainbow and let the sun white itself out or better yet . . . Solarize.

Q.G. · May 15, 2009

B&Jdude said:
I happened to have an SRT-101 loaded with Fuji color film in the car, but couldn't figure out how to shoot the picture with the camera pointed straight overhead at the sun without overexposing so badly that the rainbow washed completely out.

With the camera pointed at the sun, you will never be able to capture a rainbow. They only ever appear in the exact opposite direction.

Normal exposure, i.e. as if the rainbow wasn't there, should capture the thing.
A grad can help balance the sky (including rainbow) and land exposure, yes. Yet it should not be necessary.

But be very careful when using a polarizer. It can make a rainbow disappear completely.

But could it be that you were seeing a halo, not a rainbow?
They should be captured the same way: normal exposure. That is: normal for the landscape, ignoring the sun (or moon) also in the picture.

Dan Henderson · May 15, 2009

there is similar meteorological phenomenon that appears like a rainbow around the sun. My grandmother used to call them "sun dogs," but I am sure they have a more proper name.

bobwysiwyg · May 15, 2009

FirePhoto said:
there is similar meteorological phenomenon that appears like a rainbow around the sun. My grandmother used to call them "sun dogs," but I am sure they have a more proper name.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sun_dog

Q.G. · May 15, 2009

FirePhoto said:
there is similar meteorological phenomenon that appears like a rainbow around the sun. My grandmother used to call them "sun dogs," but I am sure they have a more proper name.

That's the halo i mentioned.
The sun dogs are bright spots in the halo.

B&Jdude · May 15, 2009

Q.G. said:
With the camera pointed at the sun, you will never be able to capture a rainbow. They only ever appear in the exact opposite direction.

Normal exposure, i.e. as if the rainbow wasn't there, should capture the thing.
A grad can help balance the sky (including rainbow) and land exposure, yes. Yet it should not be necessary.

But be very careful when using a polarizer. It can make a rainbow disappear completely.

But could it be that you were seeing a halo, not a rainbow?
They should be captured the same way: normal exposure. That is: normal for the landscape, ignoring the sun (or moon) also in the picture.

I didn't catch that about not being able to get a picture with the camera pointed at the sun. Even if I pointed the camera off to the side a bit to not get the sun in the center of the image, the bright sun would still be in the center of the rainbow and a very strong bright spot to wash out the rainbow or halo.

"...seeing a halo, not a rainbow?" I didn't understand this . . . isn't a halo nothing more than a rainbow which is high enough above the earth/horizon that all of it (the complete circle) is shown rather than just a part of the circle? :confused:

Eu

bsdunek · May 15, 2009

As said above, this is a 'Sun Dog', not a rainbow. you have to use a really dense filter, like an arc welding filter. Iffy if the Sun Dog will show up, but I've seen photos of them. Fenninger comes to mind, and maybe Fritz Henle, so it's possible.

Q.G. · May 15, 2009

B&Jdude said:
I didn't catch that about not being able to get a picture with the camera pointed at the sun. Even if I pointed the camera off to the side a bit to not get the sun in the center of the image, the bright sun would still be in the center of the rainbow and a very strong bright spot to wash out the rainbow or halo.

"...seeing a halo, not a rainbow?" I didn't understand this . . . isn't a halo nothing more than a rainbow which is high enough above the earth/horizon that all of it (the complete circle) is shown rather than just a part of the circle? :confused:

Eu

A halo is an optical phenomenon surrounding the sun.

A rainbow only appears opposite to the sun.
You can only see a full circle rainbow if you (the observer, not the rainbow) go up in the air high enough.

Both are light reflected by parts in the sky.
A rainbow is light reflected back at the source in water droplets in the lower atmosphere. You must be between it and the sun to see it.

A halo is light reflected off ice crystals higher up in the atmosphere.
The reflecting bit now is between you and the sun.

So a halo isn't a rainbow that's high enough, no.

Photographing halos, the sun will 'blow out'. Expose for the landscape below the sun, and the halo itself will show.
The 'sun dogs' will be too bright too, but they vary quite a bit in size.

skyrick · May 15, 2009

B&Jdude said:
For only the third time in my life I saw a beautiful circle rainbow but couldn't figure out how to take a picture of it.

Has anyone here shot one of those things and how did you do it? :confused:

Smiff

I've seen them before, but not on the ground. I've seen a couple from an airplane while we were flying above clouds. I've seen one in freefall around my shadow racing toward a cloud I was falling into.

Parachutist magazine, or maybe it was the out of print Skydiving magazine, has published pics of 360 rainbows before, but I don't know how they were shot. I've got enough to think of up there without carrying a camera on my helmet.

Rick

Sirius Glass · May 15, 2009

skyrick said:
Parachutist magazine, or maybe it was the out of print Skydiving magazine, has published pics of 360 rainbows before, but I don't know how they were shot. I've got enough to think of up there without carrying a camera on my helmet.

Rick, if you think you are busy when you are sky diving, try cordless bungee jumping!

Steve

snowblind · May 15, 2009

How about take a cheap UV filter and draw a spot on it with a marker where the sun is? Crude, but seems like it'd work...

Lee L · May 15, 2009

There's some bad info and some good info in this thread. Here's one place with good info.

http://www.atoptics.co.uk/

Click through the topics to see specifics.

Lee

skyrick · May 15, 2009

Sirius Glass said:
Rick, if you think you are busy when you are sky diving, try cordless bungee jumping!

Steve

??!!?? That sounds interesting! Isn't it the same thing?

Rick

B&Jdude · May 15, 2009

skyrick said:
??!!?? That sounds interesting! Isn't it the same thing?

Rick

. . . well, I don't think one wears a chute while bungee jumping, and the cordless (i.e., virtual) cord stretches to infinity or terra firma, which ever is reached first. Not too good, I suspect!

jasonhall · May 15, 2009

B&Jdude said:
. . . well, I don't think one wears a chute while bungee jumping, and the cordless (i.e., virtual) cord stretches to infinity or terra firma, which ever is reached first. Not too good, I suspect!

Well....as they say...its not the fall that will hurt ya....

Its the sudden stop at the end....

It seems to me the OP just needs to a bit of braketing between the two exposures they mentioned.

Jason

Sirius Glass · May 16, 2009

B&Jdude said:
. . . well, I don't think one wears a chute while bungee jumping, and the cordless (i.e., virtual) cord stretches to infinity or terra firma, which ever is reached first. Not too good, I suspect!

With cordless bungee jumping you do not have to spend money on equipment or drag the equipment around. You can make a great impression and you get great coverage.

I want to break the record which is only one time!

Steve

nicefor88 · May 16, 2009

That's the situation when you have to shoot without too much thinking, I guess. The camera will expose correctly in most instances as the sun will most probably be behind the photographer (case where rainbows usually take place). Underexposition can occur if there are lots of clouds behind the rainbow, though this is not common.
The phenomenon can appear also when the sun is high in the sky, around mid-day, thus pretty much above the photographer. The rainbow curve will be quite flat then.
This is a matter of angle. The normal, highly-curved rainbow is a refraction of light under an angle of 40-42 degrees. As refraction depends on wave length, you will notice that the red strip is outside and the blue inside (blue is refracted with a wider angle).
A secondary rainbow, outside the main one, can be seen when there's a double reflection of light in the rain drops, the light coming out of the drops then refracts with an angle of approx. 50-53 degrees. You will notice that the color strips are in the opposite order than those in the main rainbow. The two rainbows are separate by a strip of darker sky called Alexander's dark strip.
You can train yourself at taking pictures of rainbows by spraying water with a hose in your garden. "You are watering the plants", in case your wife complains.

Q.G. · May 16, 2009

Sirius Glass said:
With cordless bungee jumping you do not have to spend money on equipment or drag the equipment around. You can make a great impression and you get great coverage.

I want to break the record which is only one time!

Steve

No, it isn't.
It's so many times that nobody kept count.

Now if you would break the height record for multiple cordless bungee jumps ...

B&Jdude · May 17, 2009

Thanks folks for all the good info on those sun halos and taking pictures of same (good info on cordless bungee jumping, too). Anyhoo, I always have a camera at hand, so I will be ready to shoot it if I ever see another hallo with bright enough colors to shoot.

Smiff

Shooting a circle rainbow

Privacy & Transparency

Privacy & Transparency