Yesterday (September 3, 2022), Kris and I stopped in at Conway, NH to observe the arrival of the morning train led by steam locomotive 7470.
This is the last weekend of regularly scheduled steam service for the summer season and I wanted to make a few photos and catch up with steam locomotive engineer Wayne Duffett.
I made these photos of the 7470 and crew at Conway using my Nikon Z6 with 70-200mm Z-series zoom. By working with the variable focal length telephoto I was able to quickly compose images of the crew and their locomotive.
All images were exposed in the NEF (RAW) format, imported into Adobe Lightroom for adjustment, and exported as JPGs for internet display.
Last week , I made this view of St. Lawrence & Atlantic’s train 394 as it worked the yard at Island Pond, Vermont.
There was a bit of an evening sunshower as photographed across the glistening waters of Back Pond. The town’s larger namesake pond, complete with Island, is on the other side of the tracks beyond the trees.
That is correct despite the appearance of redundancy.
What if I caught a UP 4-6-2 here?
I’m in the final lap of my Union Pacific book.
I’d write more but I’m nearly UP’d out.
A UP distributed power unit (radio controlled remote) works at the back of a unit coal train passing the historic town of Pacific, Missouri in August 2011. Canon 7D digital image processed in Adobe Lightroom.
On August 28, 2014, I made this photo of a down InterCity Railcar on Irish Rail’s Quad Track near Clondalkin in west suburban Dublin.
I was photographing with my Canon EOS7D fitted with a prime f2.8 200mm lens.
I had the camera set up to simultaneously expose a Hi-Res RAW and a color-profiled JPG file using the Canon pre-programed ‘Standard’ setting. (Recorded to the file as ‘sRGB IEC61966-2.1’)
Normally, I’d make adjustments to the RAW file.
In this case, I’ve opted to display the two files without adjustment for point of comparison.
Canon JPG with camera ‘Standard’ color profile: ‘sRGB IEC61966-2.1’Canon camera RAW (CR2 file).
Ten years ago (August 28, 2012), I made this photo from my standard location overlooking Islandbridge Junction in Dublin of the morning’s down IWT Liner, led by Irish Rail Class 071 number 073.
Working with a zoom lens, I made vertical and horizontal images of the freight as it worked around the bend this was facilitated by my ability to change focal lengths quickly.
My question is: does the ability to change focal lengths rapidly allow for better photos or does it make the photographer lazy?
On our way back from Tokyo in April 1997, my dad and I stopped over in Seattle, Washington.
Although I was in a haze of Jet lag from the long flight, we rented a car and drove around . Near the downtown, we set up to make photos of the waterfront trolley line, which at that time served Seattle. The trolley tracks were parallel to BNSF tracks. While waiting for the trolley, this BNSF switcher and caboose came by.
The switcher, according to published rosters, was a former Great Northern EMD SW1200 built in Spring 1957. So at the time of the photo, the locomotive was 40 years old. I wonder what became of it?
The slides sat in the little green Fujichrome box until this morning, when I opened it up and scanned this image.
After scanning a hi-res TIF image, I imported the file into Adobe Lightroom and made some adjustements to improve color balance, exposure and contrast.
The top image is my scaled by unadjusted scan, the bottom image reflects my adjustments.
Almost every train on Conway Scenic Railroad stops at the North Conway Station.
It is extremely unusual train that passes the station without stopping
Yesterday, while serving in the capacity as ‘Manager on Duty,’ I cleared Work Extra 252 into North Conway from Conway, and granted it permission to drop its caboose at the North Yard before continuing West.
I made this selection of photos as vintage GP38 252 worked passed the 1874 station.
Recently, Conway Scenic Railroad invested in new employee uniforms.
Yesterday, I made a few portraits of the Valley crew on the platform of the North Conway station, shortly before the train was ready to board for Sawyers River.
These photos were exposed as NEF Raw files using my Nikon Z6 with 24-70mm zoom, and processed in Adobe Lightroom to adjuste highlight and shadow detail, over all color temperature, and sky detail.
The advantage of the Nikon NEF Raw is that it captures an enormous volume of data.
I posted versions of these photos to the company’s social media to help promote the railroad.
Standing at the south end of the platform at White River Junction, Vermont, I envisioned a panoramic image that would show the station and the locomotives parked to either side of the station.
I wanted to convey the sense of Junction, while making use of the nice afternoon sunlight.
Working with my Lumix LX7, I used the ‘panoramic’ function in ‘scene mode’, which allowed me to make a panoramic composite. Moving the camera from right to left while holding the shutter down makes for a sequence of image that are then sewed together in-camera using a preprogramed algorithm .
Lumix LX7 panoramic composite image at White River Junction, Vermont.
Then I set the camera with a 16:9 aspect ratio and made a single frame, which I then cropped manually to give it a panoramic look.
This second method provided better compositional control and is free from the computer generated artifacts associated with composite images, but isn’t as sharp as the composite.
Cropped version of a single 16:9 aspect ratio image aimed at better featuring the locomotives, station, and clouds.
On October 13, 2003, I exposed this color slide of Canadian Pacific SD40-2 at Binghamton, NY using my Contax G2 rangefinder fitted with a 16mm Zeiss Hologon.
This was a flat field super wideangle lens that corrected for barrel distortion and other lens artifacts typically associated with very wide lenses. However, it was important to kept the film plane level or other types of distortion would alter the shapes of the subjects photographed.
Over the last few days I’ve been reviewing thousands of my photos of Union Pacific trains for consideration in a book that I’m completing on the railroad. Consider the photo below:
Six years ago, I was poised at Woodford, California along the former Southern Pacific in the Tehachapis to photograph an ascending Union Pacific freight heading toward Tehachapi Summit.
Leading was a clean SD70ACe with UP’s bold wings painted on the front.
I made a sequence of images as the train passed. This one caught my eye because it really shows the sharp angles of this powerful diesel-electric at work.
The contrast between the sunlit locomotive nose and the inky shadows along the side the locomotive combined with a little telephoto compression helped make for a more dramatic image.
Exposed using a FujiFilm XT1 with a Fujinon X-series 18-135mm lens.
On Sunday, July 31, 2022, I used my Nikon Z6 with 70-200mm Z-series zoom to focus on the details of Conway Scenic Railroad’s 7470 and its crew,
Locomotive engineer Wayne Duffett was at the throttle of the 101-year old Canadian-built 0-6-0.
I worked with the Nikon NEF RAW files in Lightroom to get the maximum amount of detail in shadows and highlights while maintaining good contrast overall.
When I started producing Tracking the Light a decade ago, my thought was to offer very detailed essays focused on photographic technique, processes, and how to make the most of specific pieces of equipment.
My format has since morphed into something less detailed and more visual.
I often carry my Lumix LX7 digital camera because it is compact, lightweight and yet has the ability to make exceptionally sharp photos that I can use in books and magazines.
Yesterday, I made these images with the LX7 of Conway Scenic steam locomotive 7470. I used some photos for the company Facebook page and hope to use them in advertising.
Although these photos were scaled, what you see here are the in-Camera JPGs without significant alteration to color, contrast, exposure or sharpness.
If I were working with a different digital camera system, how might that have changed my results?
Yesterday, I also exposed some Ektachrome of 7470 using my 30-year old Nikon F3 with f1.8 105mm lens.
Earlier in the week, Conway Scenic operated a ballast train with GP35 216 to Crawford Notch and then worked its way east through the famous Gateway cut and over the Girders bridge.
There was cosmic lighting, with low clouds scraping over the tops of the mountains with shafts of sunlight reaching the ground.
To gain necessary elevation, I climbed up into the Gateway cut, following in the footsteps of generations of previous photographers.
On July 27, 2015, my Finnish friends and I made a brief foray across the border into Sweden. Among our destinations was the yard and station at Lulea, where I photographed a number of electric trains, including this Rc6 on a sleeping car set that will run overnight to Stockholm.
I made this photo using my FujiFilm XT1 digital camera that has an adjustible rear-panel display that allowed me to hold the camera very close to the ground.
A low angle is a technique for making a locomotive appear larger than life and was often used by early 20th century action photographers to capture steam locomotives in action.
On my July 2015 visit to Finland, my host Markku Pulkkinen did an excellent job of finding interesting railway subjects.
Early in the morning on July 26, 2015, we set up on the outskirts of Oulu to catch VR T5220, a freight forwarding iron ore mined in Russia to a Finnish plant. The freight wagons were Russian, the locomotive is a VR Group class Sr2 electric of Swiss design.
I had just purchased my first Adobe Lightroom for my then-new Apple MacBook Pro and was beginning to learn how to use this tool to make the most of my Fuji RAW files.
This was a revelation as the programs sliders made it easy to make adjustments to shadow and highlight detail, as well as color temperature and color balance corrections, which help make for much better photos when used judiciously.
I’m now working with a more advanced version of Lightroom with this I created two JPGs created from the Fuji RAW file. The top was scaled without any adjustements; the bottom reflects adjustments to color temperature, saturation, plus highlight and shadow area changes. Notice the difference in the detail to the sky.
No changes to the Fuji RAW file except for scaling.Adjusted with Adobe Lightroom to better present the data captured by the Fuji RAW file.
In recent months, my Fiancée Kris and I have been revisiting Canadian Pacific’s Moosehead Sub across Maine.
Previously, I’d explored this remote railway on various occasions in the 1980s and 1990s.
On September 30, 1997, I accompanied photographers George Pitarys and Brian Jennison to the famed Onawa Bridge located west of Brownville Junction.
Here we waited for Canadian American eastward freight 902, seen here in a 24mm trailing view exposed on Kodachrome 25 slide film.
I scanned the slide last night using a Nikon LS 5000 scanner, making a multipass scan at high-resolution, and then scaling the TIF file using Adobe Lightroom.
In September 2015, I flew from Dublin to Köln, Germany with my Irish friends.
At the Köln Hbf (main station), we walked across the Rhein on the footpath along the six track multispan railrway bridge.
At the time this was covered in lover’s locks. So many that there were concerns about the excessive weight on the heavily-built bridge.
From the east bank, I made this Fujichrome Provia 100F color slide of the bridge and the famous cathedral. Back-lighting helped to illuminate the locks on the bridge.
I scanned the slide yesterday using our Nikon LS-5000 digital scanner driven with VueScan software. I made a multipass scan and imported the file into AdobeLightroom for final adjustment and scaling.
In July 1994, I was on a grand adventure driving from California to Wisconsin to begin a new job at Pentrex Publishing.
I had several weeks to make the drive and plotted a course designed to inspect and photograph railways along the way.
Three years earlier my pal TSH and I had visited the Montana Rail Link where were spent a morning making photos on Winston Hill east of Helena. Movements on this former Northern Pacific line was still protected by General Railway Signal upper quadrant semaphores.
So on July 10, 1994, I revisited Montana’s Winston Hill. Among my photos that day was this one made as part of a sequence showing a westward BN freight descending toward Helena.
I was working with my Nikon F3T loaded with Kodachorme 25 and fitted with a Nikkor 35mm PC (perspective control lens) and a circular polarizing filter.
At the time, I would apply the polarizer to better balance the contrast between shadows and highlights in back-lit situations on bright sunny days. Notice the effects of the clouds and back lit foreground flowers.
Among the challanges of this arrangment is that it reduced the working ISO of the film from 25 to about 8 (which is extremely slow. Today, I typically work with ISO 200 or higher in digital format).
In this situation a motion blur benefits my illustration, as it shows a ‘clear’ signal ahead of the westward train.
On July 1, 1995, I spent the day with Sean Graham-White who had organized a visit at Belt Railway of Chicago’s sprawling Clearing Yard on the southside of Chicago in order to research a detailed article for Pacific RailNews.
At the time, I was associate editor of the magazine and living in Waukesha, Wisconsin.
Toward the end of the day, I made this silhouette looking west using my Nikon F3T with 200mm f4.0 Nikkor telephoto. Kodachrome 200, was a grainy film that allowed me to use a faster shutter speed. Notice the plane on approach to Chicago’s Midway Airport.
The inspiration for this image was a photo exposed about 29 years earlier by John Gruber that had appeared on the cover of Trains Magazine.
I made a three-pass scan of this image last night using our recently refurbished Nikon LS-5000 slide scanner controlled by VueScan software.
Yesterday, I received back our Nikon Super Cool Scan 5000 slide scanner from CTS Services which had performed necessary servicing.
Among the first slides I scanned after taking the scanner out of the box was this June 30, 1994 view of Union Pacific’s Bend Turn on the Oregon Trunk near Gateway, Oregon.
I’d been following the freight on its northward run and this slide was among the final images of made of the train that day, exposed on Kodachrome 25 slide film using my Nikon F3T with 35mm PC (perspective control) lens.
I’ve been scouring my Union Pacific photos for consideration as illustrations for a book that I’m writing on Union Pacific and its Predecessors (CNW, DRGW, MP, SP, WP etc) for Kalmbach.
On June 29, 2017, photographer Mike Gardner and I had chased Pan Am Railway’s EDPL (East Deerfield to Plainville, Connecticut) freight.
Our final set was of the train crossing the Connecticut River near Windsor Locks on the former New Haven Railroad bridge.
I was working with my first Fuji XT1 digital camera and a telephoto lens. By holding the camera close to the top of the water, I made this dramatic angle of the train.
Last night, I made some changes to contrast, color and exposure to the FujiFilm Raw file (RAF) using Adobe Lightroom aiming to compensate for the hazy evening light.
I made this view in the blue light of dusk on an April evening in April 1997 at Tokyo’s busy Shinjuku Station.
At the time it was the busiest railway junction station in the world, handling more daily passengers that even London’s famous Clapham Junction.
I have used this photograph and others from my 1997 visit in a variety of publications over the last 25 years.
I exposed the photo on Fujichrome with my Nikon N90S mounted on a tripod. I was emulating a style of railway photography popular in the the Japanese magazines at the time which used the extreme blurring of a train through a scene to infer motion.
Eleven years ago, I made this end of daylight view on the longest day of the year at CP83 in Palmer, Massachusetts.
CSX’s westward freight Q423 had stopped to change crews. In those days, Q423 ran from Worcester, Mass., to Selkirk, NY. I cannot recall why the crew was on short time.
I made the exposure using my Canon EOS-7D at 6400 ISO at 1/3 second, f3.5 using a prime 28mm lens.
The Canon 7D is an excellent camera. I’ve had mine for a dozen years and exposed thousands of digital photos with it. It’s higher ISO settings are weak compared with modern cameras. Here the 6400 ISO setting appears relatively pixelated. Yet at the time I was delighted to the ability to use such a fast ISO setting at the twist of a dial.
File adjusted in Lightroom from the Canon 7D camera RAW file. Color, contrast and exposure were modified during post processing.
A week ago Kris and I visited the crossing at Tarratine, west of Rockwood, Maine where we waited for the eastward Canadian Pacific freight number 132.
This remote crossing bisects the track in a sweeping curve in the forest. We waited here for quite some time. Finally, I heard the distant sound of laboring General Electric diesels. And then, finally, a distant whistle.
I set up with my Nikon Z6 fitted with a f2.8 70-200mm Z-series zoom. When the train came into view, I exposed a series of digital images and made a pair of color slides on Ektachrome.
The slides remain latent (unprocessed), but here are a few of my digital images.
Some my regular viewers on Tracking the Light have expressed interest in seeing more photos of the freight cars behind the locomotives. So I’ve included a few of those images too.
Later that night, Kris and I returned to this same crossing where we made a series of night photographs of the westward freight. Those will be featured in another posting.
Last week, after another wait in the rain near the East Outlet Bridge on Canadian Pacific’s Moosehead Sub, I decided to forego the bridge, and try a different location nearer to Greenville Junction, Maine. So, Kris and I drove toward Harford Point, where there is a nice sweeping curve east of a shallow rock cut.
We had inspected this spot last year, and had waited there about an hour for the eastward train before giving up. (That was in June 2021, and ultimately on that day we saw the train and photographed it further west).
On this year’s visit to Harford Point, the lighting was soft owing to cloudy conditions. Light rain had put a gloss all over the foliage and tracks.
While waiting, I had a brief chat with one of the locals near the grade crossing, who reassured me that we had not missed the train. And not long after we set up, we could here CP’s eastward 132 whistling for a crossing to the west.
As the freight came into view, I made this sequence using my Nikon Z6 with 70-200mm Z-series zoom lens. In post processng, I made some minor adjustments to contrast, shadow density, sky detail, color temperature and saturation.
Canadian Pacific freight 132 eastbound near Harford, Point, Maine on June 9, 2022.Canadian Pacific freight 132 eastbound near Harford, Point, Maine on June 9, 2022.Canadian Pacific freight 132 eastbound near Harford, Point, Maine on June 9, 2022.Canadian Pacific freight 132 eastbound near Harford, Point, Maine on June 9, 2022.Canadian Pacific freight 132 eastbound near Harford, Point, Maine on June 9, 2022.
Tracking the Light Explores Photography Every Day!
During Conway Scenic Railroad’s special Railfan Photographer’s Mountaineer, I traveled on the head end to help position the train, while making photos for the company archive.
While the train was discharging passengers at the site of the Mount Willard section house near Crawford Notch, NH, I was across the ravine to the east, set up to photograph the special crossing the famous Willey Brook Bridge (also known as the Willey Brook Trestle).
I made several dozen photos over the course of several minutes, trying to make the most of this photo opportunity. Below is a selection of similar compositions. Why so many? It is impossible to know exactly how a photo may be considered for publication in the future and I’ve learned from experience that it helps to position the subject in a variety of ways within the frame of the viewfinder.
Five years ago, on June 7, 2017, I was traveling with my long-time friend and photographer Paul Goewey. We were photographing Vermont Rail System’s Green Mountain Railroad freight 264, and caught this train passing the former Rutland Railroad passenger station at Chester, Vermont.
In the 1970s and early 1980s, I recall watching Steamtown run around their excursion train at this location, although I don’t think I made any photos at that time.
On this day, I was working with my FujiFilm XT1 digital camera, which allows me to simultaneously save a photo file as both a JPG and as a camera RAW (RAF). At the time of exposure, I profiled the JPG in-camera using Fuji’s built in Velvia color slide film profile setting. . While in post processing, I custom profiled the RAF image by making minor adjustments to contrast, color temperture and saturation using Adobe Lightroom, and then created a JPG for internet presentation.
Below, I offer both the in-camera JPG with Velvia color and my own adjusted file. Both images were created digitally. I did not crop the image area or make changes to sharpness.
Fuji in-camera digital file save as JPG using Fuji’s Velvia slide film color profile.RAF file adjusted in Adobe Lightroom and converted to a scaled JPG for internet presentation.
Thursday evening, Kris and I took a drive up to the former Grand Trunk Railway route, operated by Genesee & Wyoming’s St Lawrence & Atlantic. We caught up with photographer Andrew Dale, and drove east to West Paris, Maine intercept the westward road freight 393.
A mix of old and new camera technologies allowed me to push the envelope of railroad night photography.
I attached my old Nikkor f1.8 105mm lens (which I retreived from storage in Dublin last month) to my Nikon Z6 mirrorless digital camera. This is a ‘fast’ lens, and a full stop and third faster than my 70-200mm Z-series zoom.
Working with a mix of street lighting and a hint of dusk in the sky, I made a hand held pan photo of the lead locomotive crossing West Paris’s Main Street.
I bumped the camera ISO to 40,000, and set the 105mm to f1.8, this allowed me a shutter speed of 1/160th of a second. I set the shutter speed, aperture and focus manually.
Our recent ride on the Berkshire Scenic included several stops and photo run-by. On the return run from North Adams, we paused at the South View Cemetery. I opted for a position well away from the line in order to make pan-photos.
For these images, I set the camera lens to f22 to allow for use of a comparatively slow shutter speed (1/30 second at ISO 200). Then as the train passed, I used my body to pan with the train to keep my desired point of focus in constant movement with train. The slower shutter speed lets the background blur while camera motion keeps the train sharp.
Perhaps the most important thing about executing a successful pan is to release the shutter while continuing to move with the train.
In yesterday’s Tracking the Light, I described the challenges of when a fluffy cloud obscures the sun beneath an otherwise blue sky. The opposite is a burst of direct sun through an otherwise overcast sky.
On Thursday, May 12, 2022, after departing Bernardston, Massachusetts, Kris and I zipped down to Pan Am’s yard at East Deerfield and set up at the east end overlooking the Connecticut River Bridge. Here the Deerfield hump engine was gradually shoving a long cut of cars. This is a blue, black & white, EMD switcher working with slug..
About the same time an eastward freight moved on the the bridge on the opposite track.
For a brief moment a burst of sunlight illuminated both trains on the bridge, making for a stunning setting in cosmic light.
Tracking the Light Posts Daily!
In this scenario, the exposure trick is to quickly getting the optimal exposure and not to allow the highlight areas to receive too much light relative to the rest of the scene.
Fair weather clouds pose a challenge for railroad photographers. When on a sunny day, if a small puffy cloud covers the sun at the moment a train approaches it creates a difficult situation.
The cloud darkens the scene, changes color temperature, diffuses the light on the ground, and increases the difference in exposure between the sky and subjects on the ground.
Back in my Kodachrome days, having a small puffy cloud obscure the sun bascially ruined the photograph.
The other day at Bernardston, Massachusetts, I was in place to photograph the southward Vermonter cross a 19thcentury multiple stone arch bridge.
I could hear the horn blowing. The sun was bright . . . And then, as the train came into view, a small puffy cloud momentarily covered the sun.
I exposed a sequence of digital photos as the train rolled over the bridge. Later, working with Adobe Lightroom, I made a number of changes and adjustments to my files to present several alternatives to compensate for the effects of the clouded exposure.
Image 1:
Unaltered JPG converted directly from the Camera NEF RAW file.Corrected NEF RAW file with color temperature warmed, contrast and exposure adjusted, and highlight and shadow detail balanced.
Image 2
Unaltered JPG converted directly from the Camera NEF RAW file.Corrected NEF RAW file with color temperature warmed, contrast and exposure adjusted, and highlight and shadow detail balanced.Screen shot of the Lightroom control panel to show basic adjustments. In addition to the slider controls for the overall images, the bridge was digitally masked to lighten shadows and increase contrast.This is a monochrome version of the above image with many of the same contrast and exposure changes. Using the ‘Saturation’ slider, I removed all of the color.A warmed and saturated version of the same NEF RAW image.This is warmed, lightened and super saturated version of the same NEF RAW image.
Yesterday, May 11, 2022, it was bright sunny and warm in Conway, New Hampshire. The only train on the move was Conway Scenic’s ballast extra. So I conferred with the ballast train crew before they departed the yard (with engine 252 and a rider coach—for use as a shoving platform and to carry the crew between work sites), and then intercepted the train at Conway as they were putting the consist together.
In the afternoon, I tracked down the train again to make the most of the bright day.
Approaching Echo Acres.
All of these images were exposed using my Nikon Z6 mirrorless camera with 24-70 Z-series zoom.
On May 10, 2007, I organized 37 photographers across North America to document railroading over the course of one 27- hour span.
I chose May 10th for several reasons: It was the anniversary of the Golden Spike at Promontory, Utah, which marked completion of the first Transcontinental Railroad; It was also the anniversary of New York Central’s 999 on its world famous speed run, and it was my friend, Eamon Jones’s birthday. (Eamon spent his working career running engines for Irish Rail).
I, along with all the other photographers, spent the day photographing railroad operations. Early in the day, I captured Genesee Valley Transportation’s Matt Wronski removing a blue flag from the Falls Road Railroad shop at Lockport, New York. This image was exposed on Fujichrome.
I was one of only a few photographers that exposed film on this day. Among the other film photographers were my father Richard Jay Solomon—who made photos around Palmer, Massachusetts, and Hal Reiser—who spent the morning with me on the Falls Road Railroad.
The Railroad Never Sleeps was published by Quarto Press and was sold in book stores around the continent.
Part of my advertising campaign for Conway Scenic Railroad’s 2022 season includes a full page ad in USA Today’s Northeast Go Escape. The ad features two photos that I made for the railroad.
I exposed the view on Frankenstein Bridge in September 2020. This is now one of my most viewed images having appeared in dozens of ads, as well as billboards and brochures.
I made this image using my FujiFilm XT1 and converted the Fuji camera RAW into DNG format using Iridient before making necessary adjustments in Lightroom.
Tracking the Light is a Daily Blog on Rail Photography!
Among the objectives of my recent trip to Dublin was to retrieve some of my old Nikkor lenses that I’d kept there over the last 18 years.
I’d left these lenses there back in 2019 expecting to return in a few months, only to have the world change in my absence.
In the meantime, I’d bought a new Nikon Z6 mirrorless camera system with an adapter to attach classic Nikkor lenses and I’ve been waiting for the day to play with some of the classic glass stored in Dublin.
Previously on Tracking the Light, I’ve shown examples of my Nikkor f2.5 105mm telephoto attached to the Z6.
The photos exposed here were made with an Nikkor AF-DC f2.0 135mm telephoto lens. All were exposed at the widest aperture (f2.0) to allow for very shallow depth of field (narrow range of focus). This is an imaging technique often employed in portraiture but rarely in railroad photography.
Controlling focus is a powerful photographic tool because it helps direct the viewers eye. Often modern digital imaging systems facilitate great depth of field but make it difficult if not impossible to make use of shallow focus.
Although not used in these photos, the AF-DC f2.0 135mm lens has an additional control ring to adjust the lens elements to offer a soft edge specifically for portraits. I will explore that feature of the lens at a later date.
The subject of these images is 470 Club’s recently restored Boston & Maine F7A 4268 that sits on the plow track at the North Conway.
