Bay Area photographer documents surveillance aircraft over APEC, San Francisco

San Francisco Chronicle / SFGate.com ^ | Updated Nov 17, 2023 1:56 p.m. | By Silas Valentino

[thecodont]

A Bay Area photographer captured an unusual photo of San Francisco this week that reveals the amount of surveillance hovering over the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit.

Ian Servin used his Sony A7 III mirrorless digital camera with a basic 50mm lens to document the swirling light trails from the numerous surveillance aircraft over APEC and the city. The composite is a stack of 150 images shot with 30-second exposure that he took from his apartment in Oakland. He then used Photoshop for the layering, applying the "lighter color" blending mode to create the final image.

”In terms of how many light trails there were, this is definitely unique,” he told SFGATE in email. “There are a lot of additional aircraft over SF this week for APEC, primarily CHP has fixed wing aircraft and helicopters monitoring downtown and they frequently have multiple aircraft up at one time."

Servin said that he normally notices lights from the arrivals and departures from San Francisco International Airport and Oakland International Airport, and typically sees just a single law enforcement aircraft in the air at any given time. For APEC, however, the number of aircraft circling the city is far higher, he estimates.

[alexander_busek]

Thanks for displaying the image here, so that we can all see it without going to that hinky website!

Regards,

[ifinnegan]

This links directly.

https://twitter.com/airplaneian/status/1724661593261449231

[SaveFerris]

The third one was just not fair! C'mon man!!!

[Reno89519]

Saw this, interesting.

[Mr Radical]

Were this photographer’s images good enough to identify whose surveillance planes they were - American or Chinese?

[fella]

American but made by Communist China.

[Iron Munro]

Nothing to be concerned about.

Not all the surveillance aircraft were Chinese.

President Xi Jinping gave President Pedo-Joe permission to have some US aircraft in the mix.

[Iron Munro]

[Shady]

I watched them on Flightradar24 all week, like thousands of others. They were some of the most tracked planes in the sky.

[Gay State Conservative]

Ten bucks says that they were Chinese. With a balloon or two thrown in for good measure.

[moovova]

[minnesota_bound]

Lots of black helicopters flying about.