Sixteen years ago—on July 27, 2010—I made a series of photographs of Pan Am Southern’s eastward MOAY (Mohawk Yard, Schenectady, N.Y., to Ayer, Mass.) as it plied the old Boston & Maine Fitchburg Route. It was a pleasant, sunny afternoon—ideal for railroad photography.

Occasionally, I’m asked, “How do you know what lens to use?”

I have no easy answer, since each situation depends on the lighting, the scene, the background and foreground elements, the subject, and the capabilities of the lenses available.

In 2010, I was still relatively new to my Canon EOS 7D DSLR. I found that my older prime lenses tended to have wider maximum aperture settings, and the glass yield sharper results than either the kit-zoom that came with the camera, or my Canon 100-400mm lens, so I generally relied on my 20mm, 24mm, 50mm, 100mm, and 200mm focal lengths. 

Keep in mind that the 7D uses an APS-C CMOS sensor with a 1.6× crop factor. As a result, my 24mm lens provided a field of view equivalent to a 38mm lens on a full-frame camera, while my 200mm lens yielded a field of view equivalent to 320mm.

Below is a broadside view featuring SD70M No. 2622 framed by a tree near Shelburne Falls, Mass., followed by a view of the same locomotive a short while later from the highway bridge at Wisdom Way in Greenfield, Mass. Today, I probably would use either my Nikon Z6 or Z6 III mirrorless camera with a 24–70mm zoom for the first photo, and my 70–200mm zoom for the Wisdom Way image. The results would reflect slightly different focal lengths, along with differences in color rendition and contrast. 

So there’s my answer! What lenses might you have considered?

Tracking the Light explores compositional choices and the influence of lens focal length!