What are the light streaks in the sky?

[RogerCook]

Anyone have a clue?


Heres the next shot

[IzzieK]

Contrails? A chopper? or an airplane. I nominate contrails.

[Colin Southern]

It's ghosting from the pin light sources on the opposite side of the frame. Quite common.

UV filters make them worse, but even with filters removed you still get them.

[rdc]

Difficult to say without having more details about the image, however it looks as if you took this shot with a small aperture setting and they could be internal optical reflections caused by the floodlights coming straight through the lens. I agree with Colin that if a filter was mounted on the lens it could have caused them.

[RogerCook]

It's ghosting from the pin light sources on the opposite side of the frame. Quite common.

UV filters make them worse, but even with filters removed you still get them.

Awesome thanks for the answer, glad to know I won't be getting abducted by space men anytime soon.

[Donald]

Awesome thanks for the answer, glad to know I won't be getting abducted by space men anytime soon.

Just because you're paranoid, it doesn't mean that they're not out to get you!

[GeorgeM]

Awesome thanks for the answer, glad to know I won't be getting abducted by space men anytime soon.

That's what they want you to think...

[chauncey]

Just because you're paranoid, it doesn't mean that they're not out to get you!

Oh dear...Donald's off his meds again.

It's ghosting from the pin light sources on the opposite side of the frame. Quite common.

Colin, you and Raul impressed me...never would have guessed that. Woulda just cleaned my lens.

[Colin Southern]

Difficult to say without having more details about the image, however it looks as if you took this shot with a small aperture setting and they could be internal optical reflections caused by the floodlights coming straight through the lens. I agree with Colin that if a filter was mounted on the lens it could have caused them.

You get them with or without a filter attached; filter just makes them a bit worse (hence the reason we say the UV filters may need to be removed when shooting extreme contrast scenes)

We used to think they were from light bouncing off the sensor, but you can actually see them through the viewfinder if you look carefully, so that rules the sensor out.

[rdc]

Oh dear...Donald's off his meds again.

Colin, you and Raul impressed me...never would have guessed that. Woulda just cleaned my lens.

No reason to be impressed - I learned this one day when I came home from Zimbabwe with pictures of an amazing sunset: when the film was processed I had two suns instead of one, other than aliens! :-)

However, the lens may well have been clean. I think some lenses have characteristics that in certain conditions make these reflections more obvious. It could have been, for example and if there was one, a strong light not visible in the frame but not shielded from the front element. The seemingly small aperture could also have contributed. The exif is empty but judjing from the lights in the frame it looks as if this image was shot at f/11 or smaller aperture; using f/5.6 or so would have probably made a difference. It would actually be interesting to try and recreate the conditions to see if that's the reason.

[RogerCook]

The exif is empty but judjing from the lights in the frame it looks as if this image was shot at f/11 or smaller aperture; using f/5.6 or so would have probably made a difference.

I checked it was f/11.

[Bobobird]

...I had two suns instead of one...

I came back once with a bird with 3 iris'.