Tag Archives: #finland

Announcements, photography, Rail transit marathon, Tips and Technique

Russian Ore Train in a Finnish Forest

July 23, 2015 was a whirlwind day of railway photography in central Finland

My host Markku Pulkinnen arranged for local photographers Petri and Pietu Tuovinen to guide us, while exploring lines between Kontiomäki and the Russian frontier zone.

Kontiomäki is a minor regional hub in north central Finland surrounded by lakes and forests.

At Purnu, we set up near an automated defect detector to catch an eastward train carrying Russian iron ore. This was a heavy train by European standards and led by a pair of Swiss-designed Sr2 electrics.

It was one of many trains we caught that day, which sticks in my mind as one of my greatest railway adventures in northern Europe. In summer the long days and textured skies permit many hours of productive photography!

Photos exposed using my FujiFilm XT-1 with an 18-135mm Fujinon X-series-zoom, adjusted in post processing using Adobe Lightroom.

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Announcements, photography, Rail transit marathon, Tips and Technique

Helsinki on a Rainy Evening

On this day in 2015, I’d just arrived in Helsinki, Finland. I’d flown SAS from Dublin via Copenhagen. It was raining lightly as I walked around in the blue glow of dusk.

I made this photo on a brightly lit street in the central part of the city, not far from the famous Helsinki Central Station.

The next morning, I traveled on VR Group Pendolino tilting train to Oulu to meet my friend Markku for a week of rail-photography.

Exposed using my Fujifilm XT1 with a 27mm Fujinon pancake lens at 1600 at f2.8 1/30 seconds. July 21, 2015.
This is a greatly enlarged view of the same photo, which demonstrates the incredibly sharp 27mm lens, even when used at high ISO.

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Soviet Electrics on July 25, 2015

Seven years ago I was visiting my friend Markku Pulkkinen in Oulu, Finland.

On the evening of July 25th, we stopped in at the VR station to witness the arrival of sleeping car train IC266 that paused on its way to Helsinki.

In the lead were a pair of 1970s era Sr1 electrics that were built in the Soviet Union and still carried their ‘USSR’ builder’s tags (notably in English, rather than Russian or Finnish).

I exposed these detail views using my new FujiFilm XT1 digital camera.

The Fuji’s built-in color profiles did a wonderful job of capturing the rich colors of the evening sun at northerly latitudes.

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photography, Tips and Technique

Oulu Roundhouse—Summer 2001.

On a visit to Oulu, Finland in Summer 2001, my friend Markku Pulkkinen arranged a visit the VR Group roundhouse.

At that time this was still the primary facility for locomotive storage and repair in Oulu.

In modern times, a big modern train care center has supplanted the old roundhouse, which on my visit in 2015 was largely used to house historic railroad equipment.

I made this photo on 120-size Kodak Tri-X using my Rollei Model T. In addition to a handful of black & white photos, I also made some color slides with my then-new Contax G2 rangefinder.

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Helsinki Airport Flirt—Kivisto

Stadler Flirts were standard equipment on the new Helsinki Airport train service when I visited in July 2015.

Finally, as Kris and I are contemplating overseas travel again, I’ve taken a renewed interest in airports! Although Dublin will be on the visit-list ahead of Helsinki.

Exposed with my first FujiFilm XT-1.

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Vr Pendolino at Tikkurila

In July 2015, I accompanied my friend Markku Pulkkinnen on tour of Finnish railways that included a visit to greater Helsinki.

At Tikkurila in suburban Helsinki, I made this photograph of a VR Group Pendolino on its way north toward Oulu.

Finland is one of my favorite European nations and a wonderful place to watch trains.

Exposed using a FujiFilm XT1.

It is among the countries that I will feature today at 1pm in my Zoom presentation to the Virginia Rail Policy Institute titled “Optimizing shared-use rail corridors in Europe:  How do rail freight and passenger operations co-exist”

See: http://us18.forward-to-friend.com/forward/show?u=4f94dd611dde4fe207a64c0cc&id=a76983ce14

Tracking the Light is Brian Solomon’s Daily Blog on railways and photography.

photography, Tips and Technique

Helsinki Airport Train—three digital interpretations.

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Going back over my Fuji digital files from 2015, I’ve selected this image of a VR Group Stadler railcar working the then-new Helsinki Airport train at Leinelá, Finland.

Below are three interpretations of the same image exposed using my FujiFilm XT1. The first is the In-camera JPG without color correction or alteration except for scaling and watermark.

The second is the Fuji RAW file imported and adjusted strictly using Lightroom.

The third is the Fuji RAW file first converted using Iridient X-Transformer and then imported into Lightroom where I implemented the same color and contrast corrections.

One minor difference with this Iridient interpretation is that I turned off the the feature that automatically corrects for lens distortion, chromatic aberration, and vignetting. So this gives a slightly less invasive digital interpretation and a truer sense of the visual information as recorded by the sensor.

FujiFilm X-T1 in-camera JPG.
Fuji RAW file interpreted by Lightroom with my color and contrast adjustments.
Fuji RAW file converted to a DNG file using Iridient X-Transformer and then imported into Lightroom. Same color and contrast adjustments as the Lightroom converted RAW file above (2nd photo). However there are no digitally applied corrections for lens distortion, chromatic aberration, and vignetting. Iridient will correct for these lens characteristics but I opted to turn the correction feature off for this comparison.

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Five Years Ago-July 22.

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On this day in 2015, I was visiting my friend Markku Pulkkinen in Oulu, Finland.

Oulu is far north, and in July it never gets completely dark.

Working with my then new FujiFilm XT-1, I made these evening photos late in the day near the VR locomotive sheds at the north end of Oulu’s expansive yards.

Finland is one of my favorite places to photograph, and I hope to return someday when travel returns to normal.

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