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Yosemite Falls Rainbow I
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Yosemite Falls Rainbow I



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Early morning rainbow in the mist of Yosemite Falls in Yosemite National Park.

Early morning rainbow in the mist of Yosemite Falls in Yosemite National Park.
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cameraCanon EOS 5D

settings Aperture 8/1 ISO 100 Shutter 1/500 Focal Length 180/1 

upload_dateJan, 2017

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1 Comment |
Gi_Crivellaro
 
Gi_Crivellaro November 13, 2022
Beautiful!

Submitted to Photo Contests

Tags

#Yosemite_falls #falls #rainbow #waterfall #yosemite
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Behind The Lens

Location

This is the famed Yosemite Falls in Yosemite NP in California, shot from Ahwahnee Meadow.

Time

To get the rainbow we needed early morning sun over our shoulders from this eastward vantage point so after and early rise and scouting a few other sites I shot this series around 8:45 AM in early March.

Lighting

This image is obviously mostly about the lighting- critical to get the rainbow. We had a nice clear day but the rainbow effect only lasted about 45 minutes and the early part of that had the falls spray mostly in shadow.

Equipment

At the time I was using a first gen Canon 5D with a Canon EF100-400 f/4.5L lens. I might have been using a tripod, which is rare for me, but this was shot at 1/500th (at 180 mm) so that wouldn't have mattered much and there was obviously no flash and I'm pretty sure this was before I was occasionally playing with a polarized filter that would have really brought out the rainbow colors.

Inspiration

I got invited by a friend, who was a much better photographer than I am, to venture to Yosemite to beef up his portfolio. I had recently returned from years of working in Africa and never really shot much other than wildlife so welcomed the chance to improve my landscape skills with someone who really knew what he was doing. He knew exactly where to go and when so I just followed his lead. We knew there might be a rainbow shot of these falls from this angle in the morning so just got there early and found the right spot. Yosemite is one of those iconic places where everyplace you look there is something magnificent.

Editing

I did very little to this shot aside from cropping and some tone adjustments. I took a lot of photos in this series but this was about the brightest rainbow (the falls spray varied from moment to moment) and I really like the trees in the foreground- so I cropped about 50% of the image including the sky to really highlight the colors and trees.

In my camera bag

When I took this it was only my 5D (with obligatory battery grip) and single zoom lens along with extra batteries, memory cards. Since I'm usually on foot I prefer to be that light but now sometimes carry that same 5D as back-up for the newer Mark IV along with a shorter zoom. When I'm out shooting wildlife I don't even bother to carry a wide angle lens as my pocket Canon Powershot and even my phone can both shoot raw files. Before it was recently stolen, I sometimes used my Canon EF 24-70 L lens for landscapes and close-ups and love my Slik tripod, but rarely have the opportunity to use it. I also toy with a circular polarizer sometimes but otherwise avoid filters.

Feedback

I think this one is a shot nearly anyone could duplicate- Ahwahnee Meadow at Yosemite in early March before 9 AM with a good kit (and a warm cup of coffee!).

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