Photographer’s Long Exposures Show Heavy Surveillance for APEC Summit

A photographer captured the huge aerial surveillance operation above the APEC summit in San Francisco last week with an awesome image that combines 150 long exposure photos.

Ian Servin is a pilot as well as a photographer and he watched as aircraft belonging to multiple U.S. law enforcement agencies hovered and circled above the city for the high-profile summit that included a visit from President Xi of China.

“California Highway Patrol had helicopters down low and fixed-wing aircraft up higher,” Servin tells PetaPixel. “Federal agencies also participated including a Department of Homeland Security helicopter and FBI fixed-wing aircraft.”

From his apartment in Oakland, Servin used a Sony a7 III with a 50mm lens and began capturing long exposure photos of the night sky with the city below.

“I have captured other longer exposures of aircraft orbiting, but they weren’t very good. I thought that because of the sheer number of aircraft involved, this attempt might work better,” he explains.

“I definitely didn’t know how it would turn out, I just adjusted my exposure to a 30-second shutter, set up the built-in timer on my camera, and let it sit for a couple of hours.

“As I started stacking the images and seeing it come together, it was a really pleasant surprise. I had to do very little adjustment for color and framing to get to my final image.”

Continued at link:

https://petapixel.com/2023/11/21/photographers-long-exposures-show-heavy-surveillance-for-apec-summit/