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.

Tracking the Light Posts Daily!