These are birefringence patterns of reflected light bouncing through thin sheets of ice over flowing water.

Feature Image Details

• EOS R5 Mirrorless Camera
• Canon 100-400 MM F 4.5-5.6 L Lens at 248 MM
• F13 – 0.7 seconds, a blend of 6 images, focused stacked

Required Conditions

• Its cold enough to freeze but no snow covering everything.
• Strong reflected light
• Bright sun but no direct light on the ice
• The patterns are hard to see with the naked eye but a camera picks them up
• You need to be very close to the subject so depth of field is very small.
• You are generally shooting at hard angles which necessitates focusing on various spots and blending the images together.
• A tripod is needed

I have a collection of these images from the past two winters. Here are some more of my favorites.

Equipment

Those interested in my equipment and recommendations can find it here: Mish’s Equipment List.

If you are interested in these images, please see my prior post Rainbows on Ice Part 1

Coming up next, more ice images then I will move on to a new subject.

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Mike “Mish” Shedlock