Among the photos in my ‘Scan pile’ was this Fujichrome Provia 100F slide of a northward SBB Cargo train on the westbank of the Rhein near Lorch, Germany
It was among the color slides that I chose to scan during the week using my old Epson V600 flatbed scanner powered by Epson Scan 2 software.
Yesterday, I had prints made from some of my recent scans and was impressed by the way the scanning captured detail in the film right down to the grain.
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On a day trip to Cork City (Ireland) in April 2002, I made this photo using my Contax G2 rangefinder on Kodak Tri-X.
I had the camera fitted with a 45mm Zeiss lens. Key to the image tonality was an orange filter, which gives the photo a contrasty snap with lots of texture in the sky while lightening the rendiition of the shade of orange paint on the class 201 diesels.
I’d processed the film using a custom mix of Ilfotec HC.
To scan the film, I used my Epson V600 flatbed scanner with Epson Scan 2 driving software. I made nominal adjustments to contrast using Adobe Lightroom.
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This represents another experimental series of scans with my V600 and recently downloaded Epson Scan 2 (6.4.99.0) software.
I’d purchased my Epsom V600 about 2011 to replace an earlier Epson V500 scanner that had suffered a failure. Until recently I was using the original Epson software to drive the V600. The other night I decided to upgrade the software and install it on a more modern & much faster Apple MacBook Pro.
Although Epson’s Scan 2 software appears to have been on the market for a while, I’d just discovered it the other day. More to the point, I’ve found that it vastly improved my scans. This scanner-driver software combination offers greater clarity, exceptional sharpness, and runs faster and more consistently which allows the same scanner to perform noticeably better than with the earlier Epson driver.
I’d exposed this medium-formet Kodak Tri-X 400 ISO black & white film using my Rollei Model T, while exploring Austria’s Semmering Pass with photographer Denis McCabe in August 2003. On a warm afternoon we waited out a thundershower at the station shelter in Breitenstein.
I’d processed the film after my return to Dublin using Ilfotec HC liquid developer which offered broad tonal range and very fine grain.
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The other day I uploaded Epson Scan 2 to drive my ten-year old Epson V600 scanner.
I decided to make a few test scans and selected this Fujichrome color slide I exposed of a San Jose-bound Cal Train at Bayshore, California on August 13, 2009.
I was delighted with high-quality scan using this improved scanner-driver combination. I imported the TIF file into Adobe Lightroom to make minor adjustments to color and contrast in order to improve the Web-presentation.
This is a scaled Jpg from the adjusted TIF.
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I’ve only photographed Baldwin diesels a few times.
The most memorable was back on April 3, 1993. I was traveling with fellow photographer Brian Jennison, and we made a morning of following this Sierra Railroad Baldwin on its run from Oakdale into the Sierra foothills toward Jamestown, Califronia.
Near Chinese Camp, we hiked to this shallow cutting, where I used my Nikon F3T fitted with a 105mm f1.8 lens to expose a Kodachrome sequence of the antique diesel leading a train of Southern Pacific wood chip cars .
This Baldwin made a characteristic low RPM chortle, unlike any modern diesels.
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On an afternoon in August 2009, I stood atop a parking garage near Jack London Square in Oakland, California where I made this view featuring an Amtrak Capitols train against a backdrop of the city’s sprawling port facilities.
I was working with a Canon EOS3 fitted with a 100-400mm zoom lens to expose a Fujichrome slide. This was several months before buying my first digital camera.
During my five week stay in California that year I exposed more than 80 rolls of color slide film. Many of my photos featured scenes around San Francisco Bay. At the time I envisioned writing a book on San Francisco, but I didn’t get sufficient interest from my publishers at the time to move that proposal forward.
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On our drive from North Conway to Massachusetts last month, Kris and I stopped over at Bellows Falls, Vermont .
Amtrak’s Vermonter had yet to resume operation. New England Central’s line had been washed out to the south at Putney. While, Vermont Rail System’s Green Mountain Railroad (former Rutland Railroad) seemed quiet.
With my Lumix LX7, I exposed these photos of the Bellows Falls Station, the tunnel beneath downtown, and the Grist Mill Museum near the tunnel.
I created these JPGs from the camera’s RAW files using Adobe Lightroom, where I adjusted the color, contrast and saturation to make for more pleasing images, which more closely resembled what I perceived on the day.
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Three years ago on August 5th, John Gruber dropped me off at the Milwaukee Intermodal Station where I photographed Amtrak’s Hiawatha Service before boarding a train for Chicago Union Station. There I changed for the eastward Lake Shore Limited.
I made these images using my FujiFilm XT1 fitted with a Zeiss 12mm Touit.
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Last week I learned, much to my surprise, that the old Boston & Maine station at Berlin, NH is still standing. So yesterday (31 July 2021), Kris Sabbatino and I drove to the east side of this old New Hampshire milltown to investigate.
I made these photos from the street using my Nikon Z6 mirrorless digital camera.
I’ve seen stations in better shape than this one. Also, it has been without regular passenger service for about 60 years. The tracks have been lifted and its a long walk from the center of town. But it has a ‘For Sale’ sign out front! (If you are interested).
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On an evening 1992, I exposed this Velvia color slide of Amtrak 721 a westward Capitols (Sacramento to San Jose) along the shore of San Pablo Bay at Pinole, California.
Velvia was a relatively new film then.
I liked the way it captured the evening California light.
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There are many ways to picture a train passing the same place. The challenge is to find new and different ways to make photos at familar spots.
I work at the North Conway Station, NH which is just a short walk from my apartment, and I photograph there almost daily.
Several times in the last couple of weeks I have featured photos of the returning Conway train approaching the North Conway Station.
I’ve reviewed some of my earlier posts, while including my photos from Wednesday afternoon. These were made using my old Canon EOS7D with an older model Canon 100-400mm zoom lens.
I’d brought this 100-400mm to work so that my office partner, Trainmaster Mike Lacey, could make some telephoto digital photos with the lens.
However, before I handed the lens over to him, I figured I may as well use it capture the Valley coming up the Hill to North with GP9 1751 in the lead.
For comparison, here are two of the earlier photos previously posted to Tracking the Light.
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I’ve been reviewing 40 years worth of Amtrak photos for an article I’m writing for a German magazine.
In the mix of old chromes was this 2003 view of the eastward Lake Shore Limited east of milepost 129 between Chester and Middlefield, Massachusetts on CSX’s old Boston & Albany mainline.
Relatively few of Amtrak’s P42 Genesis diesels were painted in the short-lived Northeast Direct livery, making this a relatively unusual photo.
Working with a Nikon fitted with an f2.8 180mm telephoto, I was trying to make the most of a heavily backlit situation in early October. In situations like this I’d typically use my notebook to shield the front element of my lens to minimize the effects of flare. Backlighting autumn foliage helps accentuate the colored leaves.
On this day Amtrak was the booby prize; I was really after the Ringling Brothers Circus Train that was coming east from Selkirk Yard. And that photo is stored in a different file.
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Yesterday (26 July 2021), the White Mountains were obscured by hazy smoke that had settled upon the Mount Washington Valley as a result of raging forest fires in the West.
The sun was out, but an eerie gauzy brownish-fog was lingering in the low-lying areas filtering the light.
Working with my Nikon Z6, I made these photos in the smoky light of Conway Scenic Railroad’s Valley Train coming up the Hill from Conway. This was a stark contrast to the similar images I made last week of the Valley train arriving at North Conway.
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During a whirlwind trip to Italy in April 2017, I spent a day around Florence (Firenze) photographing and taking notes for my book Brian Solomon’s Railway Guide to Europe.
On this trip I was traveling very light and only brought two cameras: my wee Lumix mark 2 (a Panasonic LX7) for digital, and Nikon F3 with 35mm and 135mm lenses to expose film.
At Firenze Statuto I made this sequence with the LX7 of a passing FS ETR1000 high speed passenger train on its way out of town. Once on the Direttissma this train will accelerate up to 186mph, but here the train is traveling at a more conservative speed.
The original Italian Direttisma was the world’s first purpose-built high speed railway, predating the Japanese Shinkansen by a half century.
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On June 8, 2015, I was photographing at Ashland, Virginia with Pat Yough and Doug Riddell.
I made this traditional view of CSX’s northward intermodal train Q034 on Fujichrome Provia 100F using my Canon EOS-3 with 40mm pancake lens.
This busy line is the former Richmond, Fredericksburg & Potomac mainline from Richmond to Alexandria, VA.
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There was a low ceiling at Crawford Notch, NH the other evening. The tops of the mountains were in the clouds, yet the tracks and station were clear from mist.
Kris & I arrived after sunset when there was just a hint of daylight remaining. Regular readers of Tracking the Light may recognize that I like to make photos at twilight, and often work my cameras when there is very little light remaining in the sky.
Below are three interpretations of the same Nikon NEF RAW file that reflect minor adjustments to contrast, color temperature and color saturation.
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The old Pennsylvania Railroad Middle Division is a favorite stretch of railroad.
I first visited this location on the heavily traveled east-west trunk route back in 1988 with my old pal TSH.
In November 2001, Mike Gardner and I were on a week-long photograph blitz of Pennsylvania and paused a Mifflin for a few hours to make photos of the action.
I exposed this Fujichrome color slide using my Contax G2 rangefinder fitted with a 28mm Zeiss Biogon lens. The Zeiss lens was extremely sharp from corner to corner while offering exceptional color rendition.
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Yesterday afternoon was sunny and pleasant in North Conway, NH.
As part of my job as Manager Marketing & Events at Conway Scenic Railroad, I made a few photos of our afternoon Valley Train from Conway returning to the North Conway station.
On the final leg of its short journey down the Conway Branch this ascends a short 3 percent grade and crosses the Golf Course Crossings.
A former Maine Central Style B lower quadrant semaphore decorates the east-end of our yard. (The semaphore does not serve either a control or protective function).
I made these photos using my Nikon Z6 mirror-less digital camera and processed the camera’s NEF RAW files using Adobe Lightroom.
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July 3, 1992, I was poised on a hillside in Talent, Oregon to photograph Southern Pacific’s eastward RVME-M (Roseville to Medford manifest) on the sinuous Siskiyou Line
My Nikon F3T was loaded with Kodachrome and fitted with a 35PC lens.
An unfortunate cloud drifted in front of the sun moments before the freight descended into view.
Last night I opted to import a scan of this dark chrome into Adobe Lightroom where I imposed a series of small adjustments.
Below are two images: a scaled version of the othersie unadjusted scan, and my re-interpreted photo.
I can’t change the clouds, but I can lighten the image and adjust the color temperature and contrast to make for a nominally more pleasing photo.
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On Sunday evening (July 18, 2021), on our way back to New Hampshire from Massachusetts , Kris and I visited the old station at White River Junction, Vermont where we photographed three vintage General Motors diesels.
GM’s Electro-Motive Division was America’s premier locomotive builder from the late 1940s until the early 1980s.
The 1970s-era machines that we found at White RIver Junction are exmples of EMD’s locomotive zenith, when GM-EMD was synonymous with locomotive excellence.
Although it was a dull July evening, I made photos using my Nikon Z6 mirrorless digital camera. Working with Adobe Lightroom, I made nominal adjustments to improve shadow detail, overall contrast, and color saturation.
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On this date, July 17, 2010, I exposed this series of digital images with my Canon EOS 7D fitted with a prime Canon f2.8 24mm lens.
This camera was very new to me at the time. It was my first digital SLR and I had purchased it on advice of Chris Guss just a month earlier.
I bought it to augment my first digital camera, a Lumix LX3 (first of four similar cameras).
I was traveling with David Hegarty, and we caught Pan Am Southern’s intermodal freight symbol 22K passing through the curves on the Boston & Maine Fitchburg line at North Pownal, Vermont.
This famous photographer’s location is located in the far south-west corner of the state.
This morning, I made some nominal adjustements to the Canon RAW files using Adobe PhotoShop to correct for color temperature and bring in detail in the shadows and highlights.
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I made thousands of photos of Irish Rail operations on Fujichrome Sensia II (100 ISO). Typically, I had the film processed at Photocare on Abbey Street in Dublin.
In this photo, exposed on a summer Saturday, Irish Rail class 071 number 083 roars up-road at Enfield with a laden timber train. The signalman hands the staff to the driver. The staff authorized the train movement over the section (in this case Enfield to Maynooth).
This image was made was in the final years of traditional electric train staff and semaphore operation on Irish Rail’s Sligo Line.
I’ve been gradually archiving my Irish Rail slides by scanning them at very high resolution, typically between 3200 and 4800 dots per inch, saving the file in TIF format.
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In October 2005, I traveled with Delaware-Lackawanna’s PT98 that operated from Scranton to Slateford Junction, Pennsylvania.
At Tobyhanna the eastward freight stopped to switch, and I made a few photos on Fujichrome using a Nikon F3. It was pouring rain, so I made the best of it.
I scanned this image using a Nikon Coolscan 5000, and adjusted the TIF raw file in Adobe Lightroom to correct the color temperature and color balance while adjusting contrast and shadow detail.
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A few weeks ago, Kris and I visited the former Boston & Maine station at Laconia, NH.
I’d seen a postcard view of this Romanesque classic and wondered if it still stood, so on an unrelated errand to Laconia we took the time to look for the old building, which, as it turned out, wasn’t hard to find.
A bonus was the ‘Burrito Me’ restaurant at one end! later in the day, I went in and ordered burritos for the two of us, which we consumed under the awning of the old building.
I made these photos using my Lumix LX7.
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Gray Locomotives in High Sun—Variations on a theme.
High sun—when the sun is at or near the highest point in the sky—can be a difficult time to make railroad photos. The harsh contrast presented by midday light makes for unflattering and abrasive visual conditions. But does that mean we should refrain from photography? I know many photographers who might say ‘Yes.’
Last month on the way to Moosehead Lake, Kris Sabbatino and I paused at Pan Am Railway’s sprawling Waterville Yard where we made a few photos of a freight sitting near the east end of the yard.
Guilford painted GP40s are a rare item these days, and worthy of documentation. Soon all of Pan Am Railways may be swept into CSX, giving a growing urgency to photographs of this New England railroad system.
I made several images of the GP40s idling in the yard using my FujiFilm XT1. In Post processing, I adjusted the camera RAW files making slight changes to contrast, exposure and color temperature. Below are four similar variations of the same scene.
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Since the heat of July is upon us, I thought it would be a refreshing alternative to present a few frosty photos from years ago.
In February 2008, I was visiting with John Gruber in Wisconsin. We drove out to Baraboo in pursuit of the Wisconsin & Southern (reporting marks WSOR). John had been photographing this line since the 1950 when it was Milwaukee Road.
In these twilight views, a WSOR SD40-2 was working the Baraboo industrial park. It was very cold. I made these images on Fujichrome using a Canon EOS-3 with 20mm lens. I scanned the slides an Epson V600 flatbed scanner and adjusted the TIF files using Adobe Lightroom to correct for color temperature.
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In 1990, I’d bought a second-hand F4 Nikkor ‘prime’ 200mm telephoto. For several years I made great use of this lens to photograph trains across the West.
Through the 1990s, my photography was telephoto heavy.
These days, I’ve shifted my focal length wide.
Most of my digital photos are made with focal lengths between 16-70mm (super wide to short telephoto).
But, when I tend toward the longer telephoto range, I still reach for my film cameras.
Partially because I have several excellent long telephotos for my Canons, but also because when I think ‘long’, I think film.
So when Kris Sabbatino and I visited the Junction at ‘East Northfield,’ Massachusetts on March 8th (2021), I made this long view on Ektachrome using my old Canon EOS-3 with f2.8 200mm lens. This winning camera-lens combo has served me well for nearly 15 years.
Perhaps, it helps that I’m photographing a classic train with 1960s-1970s vintage EMD diesels bracketed by searchlight signals.
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St Lawrence & Atlantic 393 passing the Gorham Station made for a subject akin to the UFO landing in the 1970’s film ‘Close Encounters of the Third Kind,’ but accented with an awesome sounding EMD 645-diesel roar.
These photos were exposed last Friday night using my Nikon Z6 mirrorless digital camera.
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Here’s another of my photos at dusk from our pursuit of St. Lawrence & Atlantic’s westward freight 393 last week. Kris and I were positioned along the south shore of the Reflection Pond near Gorham, NH.
My tripod was occupied holding my Canon EOS-3 during a 30 second time exposure. This film photo remains latent at this writing.
While the Canon was exposing film, I made a few hand held photos with my FujiFilm XT1 fitted with a Zeiss 12mm Touit with the ISO set at 5,000.
These are two of the 1/2 second exposures that night.
I adjusted the Fuji RAW files using Adobe Lightroom.
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I made these images the other night when Kris & I were photographing the St Lawrence & Atlantic’s westward road freight (train 393).
Night photography isn’t easy, or straight forward.
There’s a variety of approaches.
These images were exposed during the last hints of daylight.
To capture the train in motion in very low light I used a ‘secret combination’: a telephoto with a wide maximum aperture and a high ISO setting on the camera.
The telephoto minimizes the relative movement of the train to the camera sensor; the wide aperture lets in greater amounts of light and thus allows for a faster shutter speed. Likewise, the higher ISO also contributes to using a faster shutter speed.
However, the real secret was exposing manually, taking into account of the very bright headlights relative to the over all scene, while taking a position relatively off axis to the headlights to avoid the very bright lights directly hitting the front element of the lens.
FujiFilm XT1 with f2.0 90mm lens, camera set to ISO 3200 and 1/60th of a second.
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We paused last winter at Ely, Vermont where I made this silhouette on Ektachrome of the old Boston & Maine station and its historic train order semaphore.
This was one of several slides I made that day of railroads in Vermont.
Why film? Because it works. Because some photos made on film wouldn’t as well if exposed digitally. But most importantly, because I like film. I made my first Ektachrome color slide c1971, and some 50 years later, I still occasional expose slides.
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Last Saturday, June 19th, Kris & I met the first Conway Scenic Railroad Mountaineer of the 2021 season at Crawford Notch, NH on the former Maine Central Mountain Division.
We spoke with the crew and arranged to make photos from the sunny side of the tracks.
A few days later, I posted some of these to the Conway Scenic Facebook page, which is among my jobs as Manager of Marketing & Events for the railroad.
I made these photos with a Lumix LX7 compact mirrorless digital camera fitted with external view finder.
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It was a clear afternoon in central Maine- a perfect day for photography.
I’d reviewed Kris’s photos from the previous day, and I liked her angle on the bridge near Kelly’s Landing east of the Greenville Junction station. So, I tried that for myself.
Standing a road level and working with my Nikon Z6, I made this series of photos as the eastward CP Rail freight roared over the Greenville Junction/Kelly’s Landing bridge.
I processed the Nikon NEF files in Adobe Lightroom for display here.
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In April, Kris Sabbatino & I made a visit to Cape Cod, where we spent a morning at West Barnstable photographing the Mass Coastal and visiting a chicken farm.
Mass-Coastal operated a ballast train with its rare GP28 (as previously featured on Tracking the Light). Working with my vintage Canon EOS-3 with 100-400mm image stabilization zoom, I exposed a slide sequence on Kodak Ektachrome E100 reversal film.
The film was processed by AgX lab in Michigan, and last night I scanned a few of the slides using a Epson Perfection V600 flatbed scanner powered by Epson software. After scanning, I imported the TIF files into Adobe Lightroom for color and contrast fine-tuning.
My finished results are below.
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Finding trains on CP Rail’s Moosehead Subdivision requires patience and good luck. On our visit last weekend Kris Sabbatino & I found that operations consisted of basically one road freight in each direction a day.
Moosehead Lake is an area of exceptional scenic beauty and Greenville, Maine is a lovely rural town with several fine places to eat. We only spent a small portion of our visit to the area line-side waiting for trains, but kept our ear to the ground anticipating the sounds of an approaching freight.
Several times, Kris heard or spotted a train before I did. And this was a huge help in getting into position line side with time enough to make photos of the passing freight.
One evening at Greenville, we heard a distant whistle, and drove west to the old Greenville Junction station to photograph its passage.
Lighting at the station was tricky. The evening sky exhibited subtle hues of magenta and blue, while the station building was in shadow. Light levels were low enough to require a high ISO setting on the camera to stop the action.
For these photos, I worked with my FujiFilm XT1 with 16-55mm Fujinon zoom lens. I set the camera to ISO 1000.
In post processing, I converted the Fuji RAW files to DNG format using Iridient X Transformer, then imported these into Lightroom for adjustments. These included lightening the shadows, while darkening the highlight regions to hold detail and color in the sky, plus some contrast and color control.
For comparison, I’ve included the unmodified In-camera JPG and the adjusted DNG versions of the same image at the bottom of this posting.
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Last weekend on our visit to Moosehead Lake, Kris & I stayed at Wilson’s on Moosehead.
It was at this same lakeside cluster of cabins that my family and I stayed back in 1972.
Since the gaps between freights on the Moosehead Sub occasionally approached 18 hours, I thought I’d portray the passage of time with a few non-rail scenic views of the lake from Wilson’s.
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