Rainbows

Over the years I have tried to take many photographs of rainbows during or after storms, but mostly with unsatisfactory results, as full rainbows are infrequent and they are difficult to photograph. Other than rainbows in less expected places (like appearing between tall buildings in Niagara Falls or beside waterfalls), my efforts have not resulted in photographs that I would print and frame. During the past year I have printed several of these efforts, but have never mounted any because of my dissatisfaction with the result.

Earlier this week we had an early evening rainstorm which produced a large double rainbow. Beverly had gone outside immediately after the rain mostly stopped and called me out to see the rainbow. I tried to take pictures from the front of the house but couldn’t get a good location because I was too close to some trees. I took the featured image from the top of a bank in the back yard to avoid the trees. This rainbow may become an exception to my previous difficulties with rainbow photos.
 
The featured image is an HDR panorama made from 9 separate photos; it consists of three HDR images merged into a panorama. Each HDR image is made from three identical images taken at different exposures. (For an explanation of these techniques, please see the Definitions page.) I should mention that the rainbow was so large that each image was taken with the widest angle lens available to me and it took three photos to capture it.

Update – 10/31/20

Yesterday we were leaving our development and we saw a rainbow toward the northwest, over North Mountain. It was unexpected as the day was just partially cloudy and we were in bright sun. We stopped at the Broadway community Park where I was able to take a photo of the rainbow with my phone This image, Rainbow Over North Mountain, has been added to the end of the Additional Images gallery below.

Update – 8/7/20

This past May we had an early evening storm and I was able to capture an HDR panorama of a double rainbow (the second rainbow is only visible at the left side of the image) made from nine separate images. Last week, at the end of July,  we had some late afternoon storms and I was able to get a nice rainbow panorama made from three separate images. Both of these images (Broadway Rainbow 1 and Broadway Rainbow 2) have been added to the end of the Additional Images gallery below.

Update – 7/6/19

Yesterday evening we had more evening storms and were blessed with a partial double rainbow – partial in that it was visible close to the ground but not much anywhere else. I was able to photograph the two ends separately and the two images are at the end of the gallery in the Additional Images section below. Both of these images (Lacey Spring Rainbow 7 and Lacey Spring Rainbow 8) are HDR images made from three photographs.

Additional Information

Rainbow – Wikipedia

Additional Images

All of these photos were taken around our home. Hover over an image to see the title and description, Click an image to see the slide show with a Full Screen option.

Technical Data