PRISM PILLAR SUNBURST

 PRISM PILLAR SUNBURST

For a second, the sky doesn’t look like sky...it looks like a window cracked open to color, with sunlight spilling into a vertical ribbon.

What you’re seeing here is the kind of effect that can happen when bright sun + thin high clouds line up just right. In real life, a sun pillar (a vertical beam) can form when sunlight reflects off flat, plate-shaped ice crystals high in the atmosphere. The rainbow-tinted look often comes from prismatic scattering—either from tiny crystals in the air or from the camera itself (lens flare can split light into clean spectral bands, especially when the sun is in-frame).

Why it feels so unreal:

Hard, low-angle sunlight gives sharp rays and strong contrast.
High, wispy cloud layers act like a screen for light to paint on.
Moisture + haze makes the glow thicker and the colors smoother.

Where you can spot something like this:

Cold, clear mornings/evenings in places with frequent ice-crystal haze (Alaska, Canada, Scandinavia, northern U.S.)
High-elevation deserts and plateaus with thin cirrus (Arizona, New Mexico, Utah, Colorado)
Anywhere right after a front when the sky turns “silky” with high clouds and the sun sits low

How to capture it on video (clean + cinematic):
Shoot 0.5x wide, keep the sun just off-center, and lock exposure slightly down so the colors don’t blow out. Do a slow pan from the bright sunburst toward the rainbow pillar, then hold still for a few seconds so the glow and shimmer stay readable.