What is up with this picture??

[grouseking]

And I'm not talking about the crooked horizon...

There are a few white/gray dashes in the thunderstorm clouds. When I first saw them, I almost thought they were tiny funnel clouds, but there is no way that is the case. Hopefully it is just something to do with a dirty lens.

I've never seen this before. What to the experts think?

PS, as you can tell, this is NOT the white mtns.

 

[DougPaul]

There are a few white/gray dashes in the thunderstorm clouds. When I first saw them, I almost thought they were tiny funnel clouds, but there is no way that is the case. Hopefully it is just something to do with a dirty lens.

I've never seen this before. What to the experts think?

I don't see any unusual features in the clouds--I assume you mean the light colored lines against the far shore, a bit left of center. My guess is that they are features on the far shore or (less likely) wisps of cloud.

Dirt on the lens would show as roughly circular spots or blurred versions of the iris opening.

Doug

 

[nartreb]

I see a number of pale spots - the two biggest are in the dark part of the cloud band above the horizon, about a third of the way from the left. Others might just be wisps of cloud or reflections on the water, but it's easy to check:

Dirt on the lens would be blurry, but dirt on the sensor would be fairly sharp at very small apertures, as this shot plainly is. Shoot a blank wall (a dark one, in this case) at small aperture without focussing the lens, and you'll see the same spots.

I'm guessing these are tiny bits of salt rime on the sensor.

 

[grouseking]

I see a number of pale spots - the two biggest are in the dark part of the cloud band above the horizon, about a third of the way from the left. Others might just be wisps of cloud or reflections on the water, but it's easy to check:

Dirt on the lens would be blurry, but dirt on the sensor would be fairly sharp at very small apertures, as this shot plainly is. Shoot a blank wall (a dark one, in this case) at small aperture without focussing the lens, and you'll see the same spots.

I'm guessing these are tiny bits of salt rime on the sensor.

Ooh that could be. The wind off the water was incredible down there. I was hoping that I shot some water spout pictures.

 

[Grumpy]

...

I'm guessing these are tiny bits of salt rime on the sensor.

Any dirt or crud on a digital sensor that I have experienced (plenty, by the way) has manifested itself in images as a dark spot, rather than a light spot. Same applies to any junk that has landed on internal surfaces in my lenses. So I am inclined to discount the salt rime on the sensor possibility here.

The white streaks puzzle me for that reason.

Usually, I would associate light toned streaks like this with some kind of precipitation -- perhaps rain, snow, ash -- and a slowish shutter speed. They do not look to me like the products of flare from something on the lens surface. The appearance of the one streak well up in the clouds (upper right) leads me to think these are not some details in landforms, such as slide areas.

Getting back to junk on the digital sensor:

I very often shoot at larger apertures (f/2.8 - f/5.6) and note the crud spots on images tend to be fairly well defined (not crisply so, but have discernable if "fuzzy" edges). They are most evident as darker (gray) smudges in large monochrome image areas that do not have significant texture or image detail -- skies, etc..

One thing that crud on the sensor does do, is pretty much leave its image in the same relative position from frame (picture) to frame. You might check other images closely for the appearance of these spots in the same general places, and shapes, sizes, etc.. That would tend to indicate they may be from junk on the sensor.

If you shot more than one frame of this scene, do the white streaks appear in all the images? If so, at the same spots? That's where to start your trouble shooting analysis, in my opinion.

G.

 

[nartreb]

Grumpy makes a strong point. I was rationalizing that a thin enough rime layer would be translucent... but it should still show up as a slightly *dark* spot.

What was the shutter speed? Some of the spots seem to show motion blur - which makes me think of small insects. That would only work for a rather quick shutter and/or use of flash.

Now that I see the photo on a better monitor, I think I see hints of green in the distance, which lends support to DougPaul's impression that there's a landmass in the distance, and there could be large, pale/reflective objects (wet rock slabs?) on that shore.

Edit: if this is Cancun, that distant-landmass theory doesn't seem very likely. Most of the coastline faces straight out to unbroken sea; and there are certainly no steep slopes by the sea.

 

[Raymond]

Distant slides?

 

[JohnL]

They look like falling water droplets to me. It could have been a few stray rain drops or surf spray. If you look closely you'll see one spot in the clouds in the upper right corner of the image, as opposed to the other 4 spots which are in the sky area below the clouds. The things that clinch it for me are that one spot is on a slight angle (which indicates movement), 4 spots are oblong in shape (movement), spots are of different size (different distances from the camera), spots show up in different colored area of the image, and they are light colored (which is what falling raindrops look like).

JohnL

 

[grouseking]

They look like falling water droplets to me. It could have been a few stray rain drops or surf spray. If you look closely you'll see one spot in the clouds in the upper right corner of the image, as opposed to the other 4 spots which are in the sky area below the clouds. The things that clinch it for me are that one spot is on a slight angle (which indicates movement), 4 spots are oblong in shape (movement), spots are of different size (different distances from the camera), spots show up in different colored area of the image, and they are light colored (which is what falling raindrops look like).

JohnL

I forgot I posted this picture in here

Interesting observation. It was definitely raining during my time taking pics here, but I thought it had stopped by then. Are you saying you think I am capturing rain drops many miles off the coast, or drops right where I was taking the pic. I wish I could remember what was going on at that time. It could have been still spitting rain at the time. There are a couple other pics I took there where you could see those gray streaks.

To a smaller degree here..actually when you blow this pic up to regular size, you can see many of those gray streaks not as visible in this smaller example.

YOu can also see a few in this pic, but its barely noticeable, unless you really blow it up.

I think you are definitely onto something. I'll be taking more pics soon, and I'll see if these gray streaks are still on there. If not, then yeah, it was probably rain issues. I was kind of concerned about the lens at first. Thank goodness.

grouseking

 

[JohnL]

Are you saying you think I am capturing rain drops many miles off the coast, or drops right where I was taking the pic.

If they were raindrops they would need to be fairly close to the camera; close being within 20 feet or so. Since you seem to be standing near the edge of a cliff, it could be surf spray droplets which the wind could push up and over the edge of the cliff. I've seen it happen on the Cliffs of Moher in Ireland (and they are about 400 feet tall) so I think it could happen where you were standing. That is, if the surf was splashing up again some rocks. If the waves were lapping up on a sand beach, then that theory goes away.

JohnL

 

[sardog1]

I'm betting those are tiny water drops on the lens and/or tiny water drops that evaporated and left minute salt deposits on the lens.