On our visit to Pittston Junction, Pa., in June, we witnessed the early evening arrival of the Reading & Northern’s Pittston-Jim Thorpe excursion. In the lead was R&N’s 40th Anniversary (1983-2023) locomotive number 2023, wearing immaculate fresh paint.
Clear skies and low sun made for dramatic light. While impressive, this high-contrast specular lighting result in very dark shadows.
Working with Adobe Lightroom, I made a series of easy corrections to the NEF RAW file to lighten the shadows, darken the highlight areas and lower overall contrast. These changes were aimed a producing a more pleasing and more accurate end photograph.
Take a note of the difference in the shadows around the locomotive trucks. The wide dynamic range offered by Nikon Z7-II digital camera captures a lot of detail in the shadow areas that may not be evident when viewing the unadjusted RAW file.
I’ve included the Lightroom work-window so you can see the relative postion of the slider controls and how these altered the RAW image.
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![](https://i0.wp.com/briansolomon.com/trackingthelight/wp-content/uploads/2024/07/RN_GP38-2_2023_at_Pittston_Jct_PA_©BrianSolomon_DSC_0820-2.jpg?resize=474%2C316)
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