Tips and Technique

CSX on Velvia

May 4, 2007, I was just back from England. Not yet over my jet lag, I drove in the Berkshires of Massachusetts to photograph CSX freights on the former Boston & Albany.

I made this view west of the rock cut at milepost 129, on the 1912 line relocation between Chester and Middlefield, Massachusetts.

A westward freight was led by an SD70MAC.

I’d exposed the photo using my Contax G2 rangefinder loaded with Fujichrome Velvia 50.

Although Velvia is an extraordinarily sharp film that offers tremendous dynamic range and deep rich colors, I’ve often found this to be difficult emulsion to expose properly.

The original slide is about 1/2 stop under exposed, which means its a bit too dark.

To correct for this flaw, I scanned the original using an Epson V750 flatbed scanner and imported the scan into Adobe Lightroom where I lightened the midtones, adjusted shadows, and corrected the color balance to compensate for excessive red/magenta in the processed chrome.

Below is the unadjusted scan (for comparison) and two versions of the corrected slide scan.

My unadjusted scan for comparison. This image is too dark and sufferes from a strong red/magenta bias.
This my first color corrected and exposure adjusted image.
My final adjusted scan. Notice the juxtoposition of the clouds with the shadowed bushes on the lower right. Both are key elements to my composition aimed to augment the dynamics of the locomotives.

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