Photo of approaching Storm - any ideas what is the line in it?

Had a storm front blow through Christchurch, New Zealand the other night. Going through the photos and found this one. The white line has me puzzled and ideas or thoughts about it. None of the other photos have this in it.

Photo taken with a Samsung Galaxy S2
Date 26 September 2013

reply to post by greenfruit


A zip line from Heaven!!!

Those are some spooky clouds, but I have no clue about the line. Hopefully someone can clarify for you as it is interesting. I could say the electricity in the air affected the pic, but I would just be assuming. I will stay tuned for a professional.

HAARP beam from the clouds

A clear sign that camera maintenance is over-due?

Sorry.. Someone had to.

To me, it looks like one of your buddies is a couple yards in front of you, shooting a laser pointer up into the clouds.

I would check where that line hits the ground. Could be a pot of gold or a portal opening up to the depths of the earth.

Ben Franklin experiment?

reply to post by greenfruit


I really like those clouds, it looks like a blanket spreading over your town!

Was it raining, or maybe sprinkling? If it was, did your camera trigger a flash? Or could you have been near a light?

I've taken some weather photos and rain has showed up like that in them.

If you look closely, you'll see rain drops in this picture:

In case the thumbnail link isn't working.



That's all I can imagine causing it, that or a bug. Or as someone else said, it could simply be a minor fault in that exposure due to anything from static to an off camera light, I'm really thinking ispyarich is probably very spot on about the laser, some are certainly bright enough to be seen in that type of lighting condition.

I really don't imagine this being caused by lightning or anything of the sort though, you wouldn't have any doubt if that would have been the cause. (Trust me.)

It is rain drops lighted by the flash. The shutter speed must be slow enough for them to streak across the frame. There is obviously one prominent one, but if you look more closely, the are quite a few others.

reply to post by greenfruit


It looks like one line, but it am using an iPad right now, and thought it would be a hoot to expand the image a little, to see if any further details became apparent.

There seems to be a second line (lol!). If you zoom in on the section of the line which passes through the garden and building in the background, you will see a very faint, but nonetheless present line, running parallel to it. It's just to the right of the first, most obvious line.

Now as to what they are, I cannot really say.

Edit to add: if you cannot see the line near the building, just follow that line up to the clouds while zoomed, and you should see it there.

The clouds are trolling. That must be a down rigger line. Maybe they are using sucker bait.

reply to post by ispyarich


Lets re create the scene

Dropping into photoshop, everything I do makes it more clear to me that this is either a light ray, or something that has a lot of motion blur.

You can see the bushes and tree limbs through it, making out the shapes of leaves and whatnot.

Best I can do for you.

Deviant Rainbow

Which is a great name for a sig, come to think of it.

thefurryone
It is rain drops lighted by the flash. The shutter speed must be slow enough for them to streak across the frame. There is obviously one prominent one, but if you look more closely, the are quite a few others.

Well spotted. I concur.

After looking at the larger image there are other less illuminated ones.

My guess is that it was not persisting down, and only starting?

I can't think of any other reasonable explanation, apart from looking for that portal or pot of gold.

(apart from camera problems, obviously.. )

reply to post by greenfruit


Clouds taking their form of a piss?

Nice pic

Check back in about 9 months, unless you are a Dude and then DEFINITELY CHECK BACK! LOL


My money is on flash lit rain drop in long exposure caught with excellently cool timing!

reply to post by Sk8ergrl

reply to post by greenfruit


wow looks like a nice storm as for the line could it be a reflection from something laying on the ground mabe a small break in the clouds let a lil light through or some one may have a weired visit tonight guess time will tell awsome pic