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Quiet Night at Port Clinton

I made these night photos in the gloom of an autumn evening at Reading & Northern’s Port Clinton, Pa. yard.

The railroad’s fleet of vintage EMD diesels always make appealing subjects for me.

I’ve been mastering the art of existing light railroad night shots since the early 1980s. My early night photos were largely exposed with a Leica III loaded with Kodak Tri-X and mounted on my dad’s lightweight Linhof tripod. These days, I prefer my Nikon Zs, often mounted on a 3Pod tripod. In both instances, the tripod has been equipped with a ball head.

The digital Nikon’s allow for much greater shadow detail than I could have ever expected with Tri-X. Yet, in both instances the images require a degree of processing to obtain a satisfactory result.

Nikon Z6 with 24-70mm Nikkor Z-series zoom set to 70mm; f4.5, 3 seconds, ISO 100. NEF RAW file Processed using Adobe Lightroom.
Nikon Z6 with 24-70mm Nikkor zoom set to 70mm; f6.3, 2.5 seconds, ISO 100. NEF RAW file Processed using Adobe Lightroom.
Nikon Z6 with 24-70mm Nikkor zoom set to 24mm; f6.3, 15 seconds, ISO 100. NEF RAW file Processed using Adobe Lightroom.
Nikon Z6 with 24-70mm Nikkor zoom set to 34mm; f6.3, 8 seconds, ISO 100. NEF RAW file Processed using Adobe Lightroom.

Tracking the Light Explores railroad photography.