Photo of the day: A rainbow over the Rideau Canal

It’s dark this time of year when I leave for work, but light creeps into the sky as I make my way downtown. On this particular morning, I had a feeling that sunrise would be spectacular – even before the sun broke the horizon, I was intrigued by the textures of the clouds that mostly covered the deep gray sky.

By the time I’d parked and was walking to the office, the clouds were afire with pink and orange. I had my camera with me, as I’d been thinking of shooting some pretty leaf shots on my lunch break, and I started looking for a good spot with an open sky and interesting downtown skyline for the foreground.

Instead, to my delight, I found this!

Rainbow over downtown

Look at the light on those Gatineau hills in the background! I actually kept walking, after fawning over the rainbow for a while and actually stopping passers-by to point it out to them, and tried to get a better vantage spot to photograph the hills. Hmmm, where near the Canal and downtown can I get a clear shot of the Gatineau Hills? And off I ran to Parliament Hill. Like, RUNNING, because that light was not going to last. And to my great dismay, the construction on the Hill had completely blocked off all access to the view across the river and on to Quebec. Boo!

Also, more than one person has asked me if I’d ever consider giving up my dSLR now that camera phones are so sophisticated. It’s true, the iPhone 6S has 12 megapixels, same as my trusty old D40 starter dSLR. I would never rely solely on an iPhone, unless it was the only camera I had with me, no matter how big the sensor – here’s why:

It looks a little bit like the fountain at the Lac Leamy casino has gone nuclear, doesn’t it?

The dynamic range, the subtle variation from one tone to the next, is just non-existent in low light for the iPhone, as compared to what my D600 can do. But you sure can’t beat it for instant gratification! I had to download the “good” photos from my camera to my computer, edit them and then upload them, so it took more than 24 hours so I could share them with you.

And rainbows at sunrise are definitely worth sharing, right? 🙂

Author: DaniGirl

Canadian. storyteller, photographer, mom to 3. Professional dilettante.

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