Crystalline Hills Tundra Pond 2

While I was visiting Wrangell-St Elias National Park last month, a rainbow briefly appeared above this beautiful tundra pond. It is one of my favorite images from the trip. I am always on the lookout for dramatic weather, clouds, & sun-breaks. I also scout a location in advance so that I can anticipate an image like this. Most of the time I get skunked, but occasionally all the right conditions come together and I capture an amazing image.

When photographing rainbows, the biggest challenge I have found is keeping my lens & filters water drop free. I keep my camera put away or covered until it is worth risking the exposure to the rain. I usually get 1-3 images before the water drops become noticeable and ruin the picture.  At this point if it is still raining it is impossible to dry everything off to continue. My other trick for photographing wide-angle rainbow landscapes is to anti-polarize the light and use a 3-stop soft graduated neutral density filter. A rainbow is polarized light, so I can either make it totally disappear or make it really pop by rotating the polarizer. The grad filter helps balance the overall exposure. I have used this set up many time and it always works.