Fogbows and Fog Depth

Apart from having uniform droplet sizes it is also important to have fog that is not too dense or too deep. Otherwise the sunlight gets blocked out and the bow won't be visible. This series of images was taken a few hundred metres apart along a gentle slope to give different depths of fog.

In this image the fog is deep enough to show the full height of the bow. My shadow is hardly visible here because too much sunlight has been scattered out by the fog behind me.

A hundred metres or so up the slope and the fog above is now very thin and the top of the bow is lost. My shadow is now much more distinct.

(The dark band in the middle is just the join between two images)

Another hundred metres further on and level with the top of the fog.

Only the lower section of fogbow is visible but now my shadow is surrounded by a coloured glory. This showed some interesting polarisation effects.