Weekly Assignment #74: Catching the Rainbow

Nikolai

Ever feel lucky? Wanted to catch the rainbow? Well, that's what we gonna do this time. :wink
No I'm not crazy. We're not gonna wait for God's beautiful swatches set to arrive with the Rain Parcel Service. We're gonna create our own and capture the results.
You can create a spectrum in a variety of ways, one of the easiest being a glass of water and a low sun. I'm not gonna dictate any particular method usage cause I want to see different results. Remember: Internet is your friend.
The result should be a nice, solid capture of the said spectrum filling a larges part of your frame, not a tiny blimp in the corner/center. Use a macro lens if you have it.
As always, fresh pictures only, moderate PS (but you most likely need some, 'cause home-made spectrums tend to look dim on a big screen, so feel free to use some curves).
Let's capture the rainbow!

OffTopic

I've been having so much fun playing around with this one creating all different types of rainbows. I just love the way these exercises get me thinking about things. And I finally broke down and bought a macro lens because these weekly assignments had me wanting to shoot all kinds of stuff...

Sharing two just because they're so completely different (please don't yell at me Nikolai ) even though they both were created with the same object. One is the rainbow on the surface, the second is reflected onto another surface.

Hope you're in an abstract mood, 'cos I sure am.



EXIF




EXIF

I would clean up some of that flare on that second one, but I wasn't sure how much pp is allowed beyond a cruves adjustment and sharpening.

[Deleted User]

Looks like the rainbow gone back in...............I see no pictures??

Tim

OffTopic

Okay now?

Nikolai

OffTopic wrote:

I've been having so much fun playing around with this one creating all different types of rainbows. I just love the way these exercises get me thinking about things. And I finally broke down and bought a macro lens because these weekly assignments had me wanting to shoot all kinds of stuff...

Sharing two just because they're so completely different (please don't yell at me Nikolai ) even though they both were created with the same object. One is the rainbow on the surface, the second is reflected onto another surface.

Hope you're in an abstract mood, 'cos I sure am.

I would clean up some of that flare on that second one, but I wasn't sure how much pp is allowed beyond a cruves adjustment and sharpening.

Nice entries, thank you, Lori!
Can you describe the setup?

OffTopic

Thanks Nikolai!

I used a blank CD. For the first shot I just laid it on a flat surface with the sun high overhead and just moved all around it at different levels and angles capturing the diffferent rainbow patterns. Lots of great ray patterns this way. I love my new macro lens!
ISO 100, f/7.1 @ 1/60. I'll edit to add EXIF above.

The second setup was a bit more complicated. In order to create the reflection I created a sort of "shadow box" if you will for a sheet of white glossy printer paper. In hindsight the glossy paper may not have been the best choice - I knew it would give me an intense reflection, but I think it contributed to the flare. With the CD facing the sun and tilted to reflect on the paper, I found I could vary the intensity and shape of the reflected rainbow as I moved the scrim that was keeping the paper in shadow and as I changed the angle of the CD. Got a lot of really cool shapes, including a perfect rainbow arch and one that looked like a flame. The shot I posted had the CD almost completely upright and right up against the edge of the white paper. Exposing for the reflection made the paper a muddy gray, which I darkened with a curves adjustment. ISO 100, f/22.0 @ 1/60

Nikolai

OffTopic wrote:

Thanks Nikolai!

I used a blank CD. For the first shot I just laid it on a flat surface with the sun high overhead and just moved all around it at different levels and angles capturing the diffferent rainbow patterns. Lots of great ray patterns this way. I love my new macro lens!
ISO 100, f/7.1 @ 1/60. I'll edit to add EXIF above.

The second setup was a bit more complicated. In order to create the reflection I created a sort of "shadow box" if you will for a sheet of white glossy printer paper. In hindsight the glossy paper may not have been the best choice - I knew it would give me an intense reflection, but I think it contributed to the flare. With the CD facing the sun and tilted to reflect on the paper, I found I could vary the intensity and shape of the reflected rainbow as I moved the scrim that was keeping the paper in shadow and as I changed the angle of the CD. Got a lot of really cool shapes, including a perfect rainbow arch and one that looked like a flame. The shot I posted had the CD almost completely upright and right up against the edge of the white paper. Exposing for the reflection made the paper a muddy gray, which I darkened with a curves adjustment. ISO 100, f/22.0 @ 1/60

Lori, great description, thank you very much for sharing!

Antonio Correia

Nikolai

Antonio, I can see the hints of the spectrum here and there, but I think you can do better than that...

Antonio Correia

Nikolai wrote:

Antonio, I can see the hints of the spectrum here and there, but I think you can do better than that...

I agree with you Nikolai.

I'll try something better tomorrow.

broby6

Here's my spectra
I've been meaning to take part in these classes for some time so here are my tries. Not art or even very good pics but certainly fun. These were made like Newton did it - with a prism.

Bob Roby

One





Two





Three Projected on an egg dish for grins. Strange optical illusion there.





Four Texture fun and games

Nikolai

broby6 wrote:

I've been meaning to take part in these classes for some time so here are my tries. Not art or even very good pics but certainly fun. These were made like Newton did it - with a prism.
Bob Roby

Bob,
very nice entries, thank you!
Care to post your setup pics?

broby6

Nikolai, I always jump at the chance to show off my world class optical lab. The setup consists of a) light source - Sol, (not shown) through dirty window (shown in photo 1), b) light defractor - old tank periscope prism, mounted on precision alignment device - notepad with
cardboard shims, also shown in photo 1, and finally the spectra display device - usually referred to as "basement stairs wall", shown in photo 2.

I put a 6 inch scale in front of the prism to give you some scale. The wall is about 20 feet from the prism so the prism is a pretty good chunk of glass. The spectrum appeared about where the green rectangle is.

My wife just held the egg plate up against the wall at the spectrum. In the texture shot we just put a collapsible clothes hamper in the path of the spectrum about ten feet from the prism. The right hand spectrum is on the front of the hamper and the left one is on the back of the hamper (two inches behind) from the light shining through the front. This was a fun assignment.

Photo 1



Photo 2

jdmphoto

Silicon rainbow
I thought I'd give it a try just for fun.

Nikolai

broby6 wrote:

Nikolai, I always jump at the chance to show off my world class optical lab. The setup consists of a) light source - Sol, (not shown) through dirty window (shown in photo 1), b) light defractor - old tank periscope prism, mounted on precision alignment device - notepad with
cardboard shims, also shown in photo 1, and finally the spectra display device - usually referred to as "basement stairs wall", shown in photo 2.

I put a 6 inch scale in front of the prism to give you some scale. The wall is about 20 feet from the prism so the prism is a pretty good chunk of glass. The spectrum appeared about where the green rectangle is.

My wife just held the egg plate up against the wall at the spectrum. In the texture shot we just put a collapsible clothes hamper in the path of the spectrum about ten feet from the prism. The right hand spectrum is on the front of the hamper and the left one is on the back of the hamper (two inches behind) from the light shining through the front. This was a fun assignment.

Thank you very much, nice setup and solid writeup!

sanaka

Otherwise boring DVD spectrum
I also played with capturing an optical disc's light spreading properties. It makes nice rainbows alright, but I wasn't happy with the result as a photograph. So, sorry Nikolai, I confess exceeding the 'moderate' rule trying to make it interesting with Photoshop. At some point I'll try for a better rainbow capture. For now I hope this attempt at a silk purse from a sow's ear is not just a waste of bandwidth.

Here's what I did: radically jacked levels which made everything grainy and revealed stuff reflected in the disc: the rim of the camera's lenshood, the knuckles of my camera-holding hand, and some random background of the room. Then I duotoned the whole image with a drab greenish-gray except for the colorful rainbow. The concentric line in the middle is the transition from the burned to unburned portion of the DVD.

C&C most welcome. Is it kinda interesting, or just really stanky now?



Peace,
Sanaka

Nikolai

sanaka wrote:

I also played with capturing an optical disc's light spreading properties. It makes nice rainbows alright, but I wasn't happy with the result as a photograph. So, sorry Nikolai, I confess exceeding the 'moderate' rule trying to make it interesting with Photoshop. At some point I'll try for a better rainbow capture. For now I hope this attempt at a silk purse from a sow's ear is not just a waste of bandwidth.

Here's what I did: radically jacked levels which made everything grainy and revealed stuff reflected in the disc: the rim of the camera's lenshood, the knuckles of my camera-holding hand, and some random background of the room. Then I duotoned the whole image with a drab greenish-gray except for the colorful rainbow. The concentric line in the middle is the transition from the burned to unburned portion of the DVD.

C&C most welcome. Is it kinda interesting, or just really stanky now?

Peace,
Sanaka

Interesting...
Before we proceed with C&C, can we see the "original", please?

sanaka

Sure!



exif

Peace,
Sanaka

Nikolai

sanaka wrote:

Sure!
exif
Peace,
Sanaka

Thank you!
You know what - I like the unprocessed better! So - great entry!

spb13

Optical media seemed like the easiest way to make a rainbow and since I couldn't find a mirror small enough to fit in a glass I decided to see what I could do with a DVD.

Nikolai

spb13 wrote:

Optical media seemed like the easiest way to make a rainbow and since I couldn't find a mirror small enough to fit in a glass I decided to see what I could do with a DVD.

I agree, it's probably the easiest way to get one. Nice bold spectrum, Sean!

Pexi

Natural rainbow
Nature's own rainbow is bland compared to these beautiful, artificial ones shown in this thread.



Exif

Nikolai

Pexi wrote:

Nature's own rainbow is bland compared to these beautiful, artificial ones shown in this thread.
Exif

That's pretty neat!
Was it enhanced in post (which is totally fine) or was it that bright IRL?

Pexi

Nikolai wrote:

Was it enhanced in post (which is totally fine) or was it that bright IRL?

Thanks Nikolai! The original RAW image was really gray, so I enhanced it in post with Lightroom, adjusting white balance, tone curve and vibrance/saturation.

ChrisJ

Not a fantastic shot, but I thought it was cool... post-it note/figurine for scale.



This spectrum is from an old diffraction grating in our lab.

Nikolai

ChrisJ wrote:

Not a fantastic shot, but I thought it was cool... post-it note/figurine for scale.

This spectrum is from an old diffraction grating in our lab.

Score! Thank you!

redleash

Sprinkler Prism
Here's mine--just happened to notice it the other day when the sprinklers came on in the morning. I did a bit of PSing to try to bring out some of the red. Lauren

Nikolai

redleash wrote:

Here's mine--just happened to notice it the other day when the sprinklers came on in the morning. I did a bit of PSing to try to bring out some of the red. Lauren

Lauren, thank you!
As Pexi mentioned, natural rainbows look very weak compared to their man-created siblings. You need a lot of PS tweaking or start with a much more developed actual one to be on par with the artificial ones...

redleash

Nikolai wrote:

Lauren, thank you!
As Pexi mentioned, natural rainbows look very weak compared to their man-created siblings. You need a lot of PS tweaking or start with a much more developed actual one to be on par with the artificial ones...

So true....but it is still hard to argue with being able to enjoy a scene like this one below. This is the original image, which I took on a trip to Scotland in 2005. I've tweaked this one for some notecards I designed, but this is pretty nice unedited. It was an incredible site in person! (Note: This was taken with a Fuji Finepix on a rainy day; it was the version before the S5200.)

Nikolai

redleash wrote:

So true....but it is still hard to argue with being able to enjoy a scene like this one below. This is the original image, which I took on a trip to Scotland in 2005. I've tweaked this one for some notecards I designed, but this is pretty nice unedited. It was an incredible site in person! (Note: This was taken with a Fuji Finepix on a rainy day; it was the version before the S5200.)

Scotland, eh! I guess they get a lot of them, considering amount of rain they getting.. Nice shot, must be majestic view.