Wild Sunset Over Lake Mendota

I was at the Memorial Union last night, hanging out with friends and drinking Bell's yummy Oberon beer. The music was OK, and the place was really crowded. It's hard to go wrong with a Friday night at the Terrace! While I was yakking away, I noticed that the quality of light had changed pretty significantly. I was in a shaded area, so it wasn't immediately apparent. Grabbing my camera, I excused myself from the table and trotted off to the top of the Hoofer boathouse. My jaw almost hit the ground when I saw the sky! I ran down to the pier area and started shooting.


Wild Sunset at UW Memorial Union - View LARGE

I almost couldn't believe that it was real. It didn't seem like colors like that should be possible. We get a few such sunsets a year, but this one really made my eyes pop. After I was done shooting I wished I had thought to grab my circular polarizing filter as it would have made the one patch of blue sky stand out like it should. There were hundreds of people about, and only a handful seemed to be paying the slightest attention to what was going on over their heads. I saw some other cameras around, so I'll be looking at Flickr to see if others got good shots.


Wild Sunset with the Lake Rescue Boat - View LARGE

Please understand that this is really what the sky looked like. There is no camera trickery, no filters except UV, and no Photoshop involved. It really was that amazing. I'm glad I was there to see it. These were 1/60 second at f/4.5 using ISO 200. The exposure bias was -2/3 EV.



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