Can someone explain this picture???

[Love_To_Fly]

I came across this on Airliners.net.   It had a very brief description but I still dont understand what it is.  If you look at the picture there are lights leading into the sky, kinda looks like a roller coaster.  Is that something or just the reflection on the camera?   

http://www.airliners.net/open.file/0925096/L/

[PHL Approach]

Bascially thats a long exposure. Thats the actual aircraft lights. If you keep the shutter open for a long enough time say 20-30 seconds it will allow more light to be focused on the sensor or in some folks case film. Sometimes you'll see when people take photos at night of concerts and stuff, they'll come out real crappy and blurry. Typically because there is not enough light and they didn't use a tripod. You especially need to have the camera still as the shutter is open for a long time to allow the streaks of aircraft and stuff. When photos are taken at night, generally you'll need a tripod to minimize camera shake or rather some people get lenses that are lower aperatures that just suck in all available light and can lead to being able to shoot photos at night without a tripod.

BTW, I just noticed that you posted this under the clips forum... Jason or Dave can one of you guys move this..

[digger]

It's a time exposure. The photographer set the camera on a tripod no doubt, with the shutter open for the whole time the plane was in view. Since it was night time, there wasn't enough light to ever sufficiently capture the image of the plane itself on the film, but each flash of the lights was captured, leaving the trail you see. It's hard to judge depth, so the climb may not be as steep as it looks, but it's a really interesting shot, nevertheless.

You've probably seen shots of cities at might, where the taillights and headlights of the cars look like streaks of light. Same principle here.

Thanks for posting the link.

Just noticed that PHL Approach posted pretty much the same info as I was typing this...

[davolijj]

Don't you think the climb looks a little steep for a B763, as specified in the photo info?

[PHL Approach]

JD, it's a focal length trick. Looks much closer than it is.

Look at these: http://www.airliners.net/open.file/0652327/L/
http://www.airliners.net/open.file/0566291/L/
http://www.airliners.net/open.file/0728575/L/

[Love_To_Fly]

Whoops. .Sorry about the wrong forum posting thing... But thanks for the replies.  It makes sense now!!  It just looked kinda weird and cool at the same time and I had no idea what I was looking at!  Thanks again!!

Awesome Pictures you found PHLApproach!!

[Tomato]

It looks like the photographer used a star filter as well... that's an awesome pic.  I'm almost surprised that the ground lighting isn't seriously overexposed!