I’m still pushing the limits of my night action photography.

Working with existing artificial light—in other words, streetlights, locomotive headlights, and the ambient glow from surrounding buildings and signs—I set up near Leaman Place in Paradise to make images of Amtrak Keystone 655.

I set my Nikon Z6 III (fitted with an f/1.4 Nikkor 50mm) to ISO 40,000 and placed it on my 3Pod tripod.

A light fog prevailed, making focusing a challenge. The camera’s autofocus system had difficulty locking onto my chosen focus point, so I had to scroll through the menu options to select manual focus mode. I then enlarged the image in the viewfinder to help set focus on the railhead.

When the train came into view, I made a series of exposures.

For post-processing, I first converted the Nikon NEF RAW file to a DNG file using PureRAW 5 (corrects for lens imperfections and minimized pixelization stemming from the high ISO setting). This gave me the option to import the corrected file directly into DxO PhotoLab 9, a program similar to Adobe Lightroom for making cosmetic corrections.

The results of my post-processing are shown below.

In future posts, I will examine DxO PhotoLab 9 in greater detail.

DxO is offering a discount to Tracking the Light readers. If you are interested in buying DxO PureRaw, PhotoLab9 or other DxO programs, the discount code “TRACKINGTHELIGHT” will work for 15% off for any new customer at shop.dxo.com.

Tracking the Light Explores Photography Daily (or Nightly, If You Will)!