Crepuscular Rays (Going Down)

Crepuscular Rays (Going Down) 1

While many crepuscular rays show the rays coming up from the horizon, you can often see examples of rays coming down through holes in cloud cover. Especially with the panoramic image at the bottom, clicking on it to get an expanded view is quite helpful. All images are from in or around Olympia, Washington. The top and bottom images are from the same day … around midday in late December.

Crepuscular Rays (Going Down) 2
Crepuscular Rays (Going Down) 3

Clouds: From Above and Below

Clouds: From Above

This shot is taken from the upper trailhead to Mt Ellinor in the SE corner of the Olympic Mountains (but outside of the National Park). Notice the ‘crepuscular’ rays that coming down from the upper clouds. I hadn’t seen such very often.

Clouds: From Below

This image is taken up the valley of the North Fork Skokomish not too far from where the upper image was taken. Although from several thousand feet lower and on a different day.

Storm Clouds and Crepuscular Rays

Storm Clouds and Crepuscular Rays

This was a particularly striking example of crepuscular rays. I enjoy the challenge of trying to cover the high dynamic range that are typically present when crepuscular rays are present. In this case, the foreground was urban and cluttered, so I opted to take it to black.

  • Camera: Nikon D810
  • Lens: Nikkor 28-300mm set at 200mm
  • ISO 200 1/500 sec f/11

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