Storm light...what lens would you use?

[mo]

Well as I had the Tessar 2.8/50 M42 on the camera at the time this is the lens I used.The light was superb it lasted for about 10mins,I loved the contrast of the dark background and the brilliant light over the town.....and I really wanted to capture the Autumn reds and greens and orange.
With your knowledge what lens would you have used and why?There was a huge double rainbow, how I wished I could have captured it...would a fisheye lens have captured it?

[uhoh7]

[panam]

I'm not an expert but seems to me you have to clean sensor or lens
Then I would try maybe wide angel like 18mm if that wouldn't work fish-eye definitely do the job. Witch Tessar is this? colors are great specially on last picture but again is it me or it's of the focus?
I'm sure good people here will advice you better I found loads help from them - ty

[kansalliskala]

Really strange colours, that's autumn down there?

[mo]

Yes, that is Autumn.

[estudleon]

All depend of what do you want to obtain. How do you imagine the rainbow in the pic? Big, small, at the center of the pic, at the border?
Your previsualization will chose the lens. IMHO

About the colors, they are nice. But here the light will do more than the lens.

Rino

[Olivier]

Nice lights and colours, Moïra.

Amongst my lenses mounted on full frame body, if possible to get the whole rainbow, I would have chosen the Pentacon 2.8/29mm or the Tamron 2.5/28mm, and the Flektogon 4/20mm.

To get the colours I would have chosen my Angenieux 35-70.

[NewStuff]

Great pictures.

You do seem to have a couple of spots on the sensor though. Top-right, and diagonally further in towards the centre from there.

[mo]

I noticed the spots as well.
Thanks Rino,I guess the main thing I wanted to show was the strong contrast of the brilliant light compared to the dark background,secondly it was the effect of the light on the colors,and thirdly it would have been the double rainbow in its brilliance "a complete rainbow"...after this light finished it got darker and it showed the reds as very deep...I sadly "stuffed" those images up as I should have used a tripod.
Thanks for showing me I need to slow down and think about it a bit more.I also see how much I am in need of a wide angle lens... sadly missing from my collection.

[martinsmith99]

I like the pics.

Now go get a wide angle lens and a rocket blower!

[AhamB]

To capture a complete double rainbow in a single shot you'll probably need an full-frame equivalent focal length of about 14mm, and 20mm for a single one. The primary rainbow is 84 degrees wide and the secondary is 102 degrees wide, so you need a lens that matches the horizontal angle of view.

The size of the rainbow also depends on how high the sun is in the sky. If the sun is high, you will only see a small part of the rainbow. If the sun is very low (at sunset/sunrise) you will see almost a half circle. In the mountains you can see even a bigger part. http://www.atoptics.co.uk/rainbows/primalt.htm

A polarizer makes rainbows more intense, by the way.

[Olivier]

[mo]

[marty]

Great colors, Mo. Good compositions also, they do work. Regarding the focal my first impulse would have been using certainly something wider to get the whole rainbow, but using a short tele and isolating small details of the scene works great also. A word of warning on using polarizers with extreme wide-angles, due to the extremely large framed field the filter may not work correctly on the whole frame creating strips. The image will be more saturated where the polarization takes effect and less where it does not. The phenomenon is evident with anything wider than 24mm on 24x36.

Cheers, M.

[mo]

Thanks for the encouragement Marty,My first impulse is to try to capture all of what I see.It is interesting to know that isolating can work as well for capturing a scene.

[marty]

To put things in a slight different way when things are moving fast (as in this case) it is a good policy trying to be creative and use the equipment that is readily available rather than starting to fiddle with lens caps or whatever and losing the moment. Just my two pennies.

Cheers, M.

[AhamB]

Some examples: https://picasaweb.google.com/jung.bp/Rainbows?authkey=Gv1sRgCOf_6uXki5WitwE&feat=directlink

I liked to take some more selective shots to get more detail, and the scenere below the rainbow wasn't so nice, so I didn't upload the shots of the complete double bow.
A polarizer was used here. The fringes that you see on the inside of the rainbow are called supernumaries. They indicate a uniform and relatively small drop size. I would estimate 0.6mm, according to this page: http://www.atoptics.co.uk/rainbows/supdrsz.htm

Rainbow displays can last quite long by the way, if you're lucky. I've seen one last year kept getting more and more intense. I didn't rush to get my camera though, just enjoyed it many minutes.

[Olivier]

[koji]

When you see a double rainbows, you should check the direction of the sun.
You may be able to see the third rainbow!! Often it is a circle. I only saw it
once in my life.

Nice double rainbow> http://talklikeaphysicist.com/2008/a-rainbow-double-and-supernumerary/

Third rainbow example> http://www.flickr.com/photos/26543329@N07/2490232734/in/photostream/

My own not a good shot by Canon S95 at 6mm (28mm equivalent for 35mm format)


So for a double rainbow you may need 20mm or wider lens.

[mo]

Koji..were you in a train or car?Looking at the foreground blur.

[koji]

Yes, was on the train. A shot was through the glass window.