Strasburg Rail Road’s Night Before Christmas excursion was working upgrade from the East Strasburg, Pa., station with engine 90 leading tender first.
This offered another great opportunity to test the limits of Nikon’s Z6-III with the ‘fast fifty’ (f1.4 50mm).
This sequence was exposed hand held, which allowed me to pan the train as it passed. I had the ISO set to 64000 and this enabled a shutter speed of 1/100th of second at f1.4.
Not bad for hand held at night! A nearly full moon augmented street lights and Christmas lighting near the tracks.
My next Railroad Photography 101 Class will be held on Saturday Dec 13, 2025 from 9 to 11am at the Railroad Museum of Pennsylvania. The theme to this class will be working with holiday settings, including techniques on how to make better night train photographs.
See: https://www.eventbrite.com/…/railroad-photography-101…
Tracking the Light walks the night.