Something incredible happen to our town in Medan
A perfect rainbow ring around the sun appeared at noon on 22 Sep 2008, we believe also known as Sun Dogs
You might be interested to see the photos we took below:

http://www.medanku.com/rainbow-halo-sun/

Warmest Greetings from
MedanKu.com

I’m a visual effects expert in Hollywood and I have to point out that the photo on this page titled “Crepuscular Rays” with the rays coming through the hole in the natural rock bridge is TOTALLY faked.

First, you will (now) no doubt notice the insurmountable problem that the FRONT of those rocks is lit by the sun, which from the hard shadows on them tells us that the sun is not behind and to the right as the phony ray wants you to believe, it is in fact clearly IN FRONT of the rocks and roughly straight overhead because it’s lighting their front side yet some of the vertical surfaces are in shadow. Look at the hard black shadow under the left side of the arch: if that isn’t a sun shadow from the front then I’m Napoleon. So that beam is not from the sun, it is from Elvis in his Photoshop flying saucer.

The air between the camera and the ray’s terminus on the ground is also much too clear to have evidenced that much diffraction or diffusion in the beam area, that is, the air is way too clear to form that much of a beam. Look at how clear the air is all the way into the far distance (well uh, heh heh…see below) – there’s truly no way you could get that hot a ray under those conditions, even if the cloud shadows going the wrong way and the sun hitting the front of the rocks hadn’t already totally destroyed this picture’s credibility.

To top all that off, THE WHOLE SKY HAS BEEN REPLACED! Look carefully at those clouds: they’re at the wrong perspective! They appear to slope down too much toward the horizon which means that they were shot with a camera that was tilted up more than the camera that shot the rocks – look carefully and you’ll agree.

The casual unprofessional Photoshop trickster likely thought nobody would be able to tell that the perspective was off, but I am an expert and I can tell! The fact that the light is hitting the clouds from the wrong angle compared to the rocks provides another cue to their incorrect perspective. So the guy doesn’t even know that you have to do sky replacements with skies that match the perspective, lens angle and light direction of the landscape image.

Lastly, the patch of ground lit by the rays is the worst Photoshop attempt I have ever seen (ok ok, maybe I’ve seen worse). Where’s the darker area we should see where the obvious gap between the two beams falls? How does the gap between the two beams (where there should be NOTICEABLY LESS SUNLIGHT) end up lighting the ground in that area to the same level as where the hot beams fall?

The guy must have been getting tired by the time he botched that – the color of the patch on the ground is totally wrong (too yellow-green) and not from the same palette of color as the landscape – notice that the beams are NOT yellow-green, they are obviously white and should not change the color palette…all moot anyway because again, (I am laughing as I type) that patch of sun he put on the ground at the foot of the phony beam is in an area of the picture THAT IS ALREADY IN THE SUN as demonstrated above. Doh! What a goofball.

A totally ridiculous amateur Photoshop fake BUSTED!

Would be great for the cover of some religious publication though!