Experimenting with Double Filters

Yesterday morning I woke up at 5 a.m. It was dark, cold, and quiet — the kind of silence that makes you wonder if you should just crawl back into bed. But the sky was clear with some clouds forming near the horizon, and experience told me this could become one of those fiery sunrises worth losing sleep over.

So I packed my Canon 5DsR with the Sigma Art 24–70 mm and headed to the Loonse en Drunense Duinen. Besides chasing light, I had something else in mind — a little experiment. I wanted to see what would happen if I combined a polarizing filter with a transparent plastic petri dish (from Corning).

If you’ve ever looked at a car’s rear window through polarized sunglasses and seen those oily rainbow patterns — that’s birefringence at work. When two polarizing surfaces interact with certain plastics, they reveal hidden stress patterns in vivid colors.

So I rotated both filters until the sky exploded into gradients of purple, turquoise, and gold. No Photoshop tricks here — just light, plastic, and curiosity playing together.

Sometimes, science and art meet right in front of your lens.

#ExperimentalPhotography #CreativeFilters #PolarizerEffect #OpticalPhenomena #Birefringence #PetriDishExperiment #ScienceInArt #NatureAndLight #SkyPhotography #ColorPlay #OpticsInNature #PhotographyExperiment #LandscapePhotography #AtmosphericLight #SkyMagic #MorningGlow #NaturalLight #PhotographyArt #ExploringLight #CreativeProcess #FieldExperiment #AbstractNature #PhysicsOfLight #Canon5DsR #SigmaArt2470 #DutchLandscape #LoonseEnDrunenseDuinen #NaturePhotography #VisualExploration #CuriousMind #ArtOfSeeing #PhotographyIsScience #ChasingLight #SkyWatcher #ExperimentalArt #BehindTheLens #ColorInspiration #LightAndShadow #OpticalArt #ByMaikelPhotography

@H4ND I think the proper term for this phenomena is a "glory": https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glory_%28optical_phenomenon%29

Light from the sun vs reflection isn't really the indicating factor, but rather the size of the arc. In this case, it's a very tight circle compared to the size of a rainbow.

#rainbow #physics #OpticalPhenomena

Glory (optical phenomenon) - Wikipedia

I saw two solar halo phenomena in high clouds but I only managed to cap one. I think it's a 46° halo, but they're rare so maybe it's a colourless infralateral arc?
I've already capped double sundogs and a weak 22° halo this year so I'm on a roll.

#AtmosphericOptics #OpticalPhenomenon #OpticalPhenomena #halo #IceHalo #SolarHalo #46DegreeHalo #Cirrus #Cloud #Clouds ? #InfralateralArc ?

Mesmerizing display of sunlight reflecting on the lake yesterday!
#NewEngland #Nature #Hiking #OpticalPhenomena #Sun #Reflection #FromTheField
Another Sun halo today! 62°F feels like Spring!🤔
Previous Halo was three days ago and it was 22°F. Big temperature fluctuations!
#NewEngland #woodlands #Nature #hiking #OpticalPhenomena #atmosphericPhenomena #refraction #Sun #SunHalo #astronomy #FromTheField

So, @stylo_the_unicorn nudged me to post images of the glass bottle shard I found, which to my eyes appears opaque dark blue but when held to the light seems a transparent mid green. There's no direct sun through the thick altocumulus stratiformis opacus clouds (sorry, I collect clouds) so capturing an image was difficult and, interestingly, the camera's colour correction software is processing glass that looks green to my eyes as a redder-browner colour. Any explanation of the apparent colour change in the glass, please?

#glass #DichroicGlass #chemistry #physics #light #finds #mudlarking #larking #litterpicking #help #clouds #OpticalPhenomenon #OpticalPhenomena

The colorful halo effect around the Sun was caused by light refracting off ice crystals in the clouds. I was fascinated by the interesting cloud structures below too!
#Nature #OpticalPhenomena #AtmosphericOptics #Clouds #Sun #Sky #Hiking #FromMyHike