Sunset setting below horizon +Repost

[HarveyAbernathey]

This above image, taken at 6:50:23pm, was captured exactly 50 sec. before the posted photo below. You can see the adjacent row of cypress trees (and horizon line), where I had just completed seeing the sun set below the horizon. It shows the horizon better. I was looking for a composition that might work for a later Milky Way, then turned back to see the sun again, which did not make sense to me. I then started shooting again. Note - The marine fog layer was actually >290 mi. off the coast at 4:56pm, when I took a screen shot of the NOAA satellite view. The marine layer would have been way beyond my view. and not in front of the sun.

I am also putting up this other shot capture (below), taken at 6:51:42 pm where the sun was actually setting upward at that time.

By 6:56:26pm (photo below), I could still see a flat glowing bar on the horizon about much larger than the width of the sun. The sun was well below the horizon by this time.

Critique Style Requested: Initial Reaction

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Questions to guide your feedback

I was framing the setting sun through the coastal cypress trees along the Pacific Coast when it manifested below the horizon.

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Image Description

My initial shots were captured with the setting sun through the trees. I was then going to capture the silhouette of the trees against the orange glow between golden and blue hour, having reset my camera for darker conditions while hand-holding…then the sun showed up on the surface of the water.

Technical Details

1/8000s at f/8, -2.0 EV @ ISO 3200

Specific Feedback

I am not exactly sure what contributed to the sun’s reflection on the water!

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[Dave_Douglass]

Very nice capture. I cannot figure out how the sun appears below the horizon line. Aside from that mystery, I love the shot. Did you look at removing a little of the RH cropping? My only thought.

[Jim_Gavin]

Very interesting and nice image. Sunsets over the ocean are one of my favorite subjects. I really like this one, especially the mysterious position of the sun and the ocean. It’s difficult to understand. I think there must be a fog bank and the bottom of the sun is where it is spreading out as it meets a denser part of the fog bank or the water line. I still don’t understand why I can’t see more of the top of the sun.

[HarveyAbernathey]

Thanks, Dave. It is yet a mystery to me. I did crop initially, but really liked the balance of the clouds in the upper right. When I removed some of the right in crop, I found the balance off. I did however play with a little crop to remove the one tree branch extending up into the cloud.

[HarveyAbernathey]

Thanks, Jim. I also don’t understand how the sun manifested there and hope someone with more meteorological experience could explain it. There was a marine layer about 160 miles off the coast, as I also lost the very bottom of the Milky Way in later shots, which is why I was out there. For now, the shot is still a mystery to me.

[Mark_Seaver]

Harvey, this is a very peaceful, sunset, made special by the inverted sun. That effect is most likely what is called an inferior mirage, where an object that’s higher in the sky is seen inverted and below the apparent horizon. In this case it means that the water (and the air just above the water) is warmer than the air higher up. There’s a related effect called the vanishing line that in combination with the clouds is hiding the lower parts of the sky.

[HarveyAbernathey]

Thanks, Mark. When looking further into the shot I posted from Point Reyes National Park in California, I noticed something curious. Initially, I thought that the sun was obscured by the marine layer, but the clouds over the ocean in the upper right corner caught my attention. Their coloration suggested the sun was already below the horizon—darker than expected for a sunset still in progress.

Your mention of a mirage intrigued me, but with the holidays, I hadn’t had time to explore it further until now. I revisited the sequence of 40 photos I took between 6:47 PM (sunset) and 6:56 PM, shot from the same seated position. My camera’s clock was fairly accurate, and in the first image, taken at 6:47 PM, the sun’s disk was just beginning to dip below the ocean’s edge, which would make sense since it travels it’s own diameter in 2 minutes.

Within the initial shots, the setting sun was too bright to view directly, I relied on my LCD screen and histogram, adjusting exposure compensation between +1.33 EV and -2.0 EV. I experimented with compositions and focal lengths ranging from 100mm to 400mm. By the 15th shot, at 6:49 PM, I captured the last visible sliver of the top of the sun’s disk, thinking the sun had set. I then shifted to photographing the surrounding sky and the colorful clouds for a few seconds. What I didn’t know until my review now is that in the 15th shot I was already picking up some of the disk below the horizon.

What startled me was that, after glancing back at the sun, I saw the full disk reappear. I resumed shooting, this time using the viewfinder. The shot I posted was taken at 6:51 PM. Over the next minute, the sun’s shape distorted, transitioning from a full disk to a wide glowing bar just above the horizon. I captured this sequence at 400mm, documenting the sun’s disappearance.

My final shot, at 6:56 PM, showed a faint, flat glow on the horizon, invisible to the naked eye but picked up by the camera. By then, the sun was likely about 2.5 disk diameters below the horizon.

I now believe this sequence captured the sun transitioning into a mirage—possibly a superior mirage. With ocean temperatures around 52°F and inland temperatures soaring to over 100°F that day just 20 miles away, the atmospheric conditions seem to support this phenomenon.

I expect to research this some more. If I get the opportunity (and time), I will put these images into a sequence to show the progression over this 9-minute period of time.

I believe I have answered my own dilemma.

[Diane_Miller]

A lovely capture with stunning color and tree shapes! I like the crop but both versions are lovely.

I have captured the sun doing this and it’s due to setting behind a fog bank. What looks like the horizon is the top of the fog. The actual horizon is likely the horizontal sliver at the base of the sun. It is odd (and a very interesting feature of the image!) that the top of the sun is hidden but it’s just an optical phenomenon of some sort – refraction or something – that is well beyond my expertise. But you’re on the track for an explanation.

I’d love to see your further results!

[HarveyAbernathey]

@Diane_Miller - I edited the post to show more of the sequence after the sun had already set. I took about 16 shots between the 1st photo above and the last one in this repost.

[Diane_Miller]

The fog bank was over the horizon but there could have been a thin marine layer (or some temperature phenomenon, as @Mark_Seaver refers to) closer in. This has to be some sort of refraction, bending the sun’s light into view even though it is below your horizon. Very fascinating (and lovely) captures!