Wish comes true, as rainbow appears for new wide-angle lens

A rainbow arcs over the green Atlantic Ocean off Indialantic. I accidentally took this at 14mm, toward the middle of my new 11-16mm lens. I'm kind of annoyed that my shadow is in this photo.

The rainbow as seen from the shoreline of the Indian River, on the west end of the Melbourne Causeway.

I've been saving for a while to get some new photography equipment, and with the most recent purchase of a Tokina 11-16mm super wide-angle lens, my arsenal is nearly complete.

The new "glass" was delivered Thursday morning, so I ventured out in the afternoon to put it to the test. Oddly enough, I was thinking about how I haven't seen a rainbow recently. I made a wish to see one Thursday for the sake of something to shoot with the new gear.

Someone must have heard. As I was shooting birds in Melbourne, I noticed that a rainbow had appeared to the east, near the beach. I jumped into my car and headed for the pot of gold.

The new Tokina will help with nighttime rocket launches from Cape Canaveral, as well as with the various weather phenomena we have here in Florida.

Nothing else was as spectacular on Day 1 with the lens, but here are a few other shots, just because.


Left: An osprey prepares to perch on one of the water towers in Melbourne. It is a gigantic structure, of course, but with my lens at 11mm, it doesn't quite fill the frame. The dark clouds in the lower part of the image was part of the weather system that brought light sprinkles and the rainbow.

Updated: A hibiscus bush at Wells Park in Melbourne.

Tadpoles swarm in the pool for a small fountain in front of Melbourne's Liberty Bell Memorial Museum.

A sunset from the Melbourne Causeway, in HDR.