I had a few minutes on Tuesday night. Amtrak Keystone 649 was running behind the advertised, while eastward Keystone 656 was less that 20 minutes away.
Icy snow covered the ground, limiting where I could safely park, so I pulled into Bird-in-Hand, Pa. Here, I set up my 3Pod Tripod with Nikon Z6-III, and thenas the two trains passed just a couple of minutes apart, I exposed this series of high ISO photos.
These photos made for an ideal addition to my class on Railroad Night Photography, held last night at the Railroad Museum of PA.
In addition to my short slide show, the museum was open to students who were free to wander the exhibits and make images in comparative darkness.
Tracking the Light Explores Nocturnal Rail Photography!
Urban artificial light offers endless opportunities for railroad night photos, but working successfully with man-made light sources comes with challenges.
I admit, I’m drawn to artificial light like a wayward moth.
I see the ghastly glow of street lights as a way to make interesting rail-images.
Digital photography makes working with artificial light much easier than it was with slide film. Automatic white balance settings enable accurate color control without requiring a color temperature meter and filter packs. In-camera exposure histograms and instantaneous results allows us to set and check exposures on-site. Digital processing allow for noise reduction, contrast control, and the ability to adjust highlights and shadows to maximize detail and manipulate ‘mood’.
In January 2014, I made this photograph looking down on Philadelphia’s 30th Street Station locomotive storage tracks. To keep my Lumix LX3 steady, I positioned the camera on small pocket tripod that I carried in my camera bag just for such occasions. I used the camera’s self-timer to minimize vibration.
The other day, I located the original RW2 RAW file on a backup hard drive and converted the image to an DNG file using PureRaw, a program that I’ve been using to improve my night photos. The details of this improved interpretation are subtle, some of which is lost in presentation here owing to image compression imposed by the Word Press hosting site.
In addition to PureRaw contrast improvement and lens defect reduction, I made a some changes to contrast, exposure, and level using Adobe Lightroom.
Scaled file directly from the unprocessed RW-2 RAW file. This is without correction or cosmetic change. Exposed at f2.5 1/3 second, auto white balance at ISO 80 using a Lumix LX3.JPG scaled from converted DNG file without cosmetic conversions. Exposed at f2.5 1/3 second, auto white balance at ISO 80 using a Lumix LX3.This is the same PureRaw processed DNG file following adjustments to contrast, highlights and shadow areas plus level corrections using Adobe Lightroom. Note the improved level of detail in the shadows.
Kris had suggested seeking out Norfolk Southern’s night local, which we found working at Greenfield Road in Lancaster, Pa.
After exposing a few photos using my FujiFilm XT1 (as presented yesterday), I made this series of images with a Lumix LX7.
The first image is of the train at Greenfield Road, where it was working High Steel Structures. The others were along Amtrak’s Harrisburg Line along Jefferson Drive.
All the images were converted in DNG format from RAW files using DxO PureRaw.
The combination of a low ceiling, a bright moon and the blanket of snow covering the ground made for interesting evening light.
While there really wasn’t enough light to stop a fast moving Amtrak Keystone, I felt the ambient lighting conditions were still conducive to photography.
I set up my Bogen tripod in the snow and attached to it my Nikon Z7-II with 24-70mm Nikkor Z-series lens.
After a few test photos at ISO 200 to check my angle and lighting, I set the ISO to 2000 and waited fo the Keystone to zip by at speed.
The final pair of photos were exposed a f4, for 1.6 seconds with the lens set to 24mm.
Test photo, ISO 200, f4.0 15 seconds..ISO 2000, f4, for 1.6 secondsISO 2000, f4, for 1.6 seconds
Kris and I went to see the Cape Cod Central on Satuday evening. The railroad had decked out the former New Haven Railroad station and signal tower with an elaborate display of Christmas lights for their Polar Express excursions.
Working with my Nikon Z6 set at high ISO, I exposed this series of handheld night photos.
24mm; f4, 1/50th of a sec. Photo scaled from in-camera JPG33mm, f5, 1/50th of a sec. Photo converted from NEF camera RAW.
St Lawrence & Atlantic 393 passing the Gorham Station made for a subject akin to the UFO landing in the 1970’s film ‘Close Encounters of the Third Kind,’ but accented with an awesome sounding EMD 645-diesel roar.
These photos were exposed last Friday night using my Nikon Z6 mirrorless digital camera.
We chased the westward CP Rail freight from Moosehead to Jackman, near the Canadian frontier.
Many years ago, my friends and I slept in a van at the Jackman Station, courtesy of the CP agent on our way to Quebec.
I recalled that night back in the 1980s, as my Fiancé Kris Sabbatino and I anticipated photographing CP Rail last weekend.
Lucky for us, it stopped to switch out its consist, giving use several opportunities to make photos.
On our return to Moosehead, we met many moose along Route 15!
Exposed on a tripod with a Nikon Z6 mirrorless digital cameraExposed on a tripod with a Nikon Z6 mirrorless digital cameraExposed on a tripod with a Nikon Z6 mirrorless digital cameraExposed on a tripod with a Nikon Z6 mirrorless digital cameraMoose family on Route 15, east of Jackman, Maine. Exposed with a FujiFilm XT1.
The other evening I made a few handheld photos of Irish Rail class 201 diesel number 217 River Fleskat Dublin’s Heuston Station.
217 was working a Mark4 set on the 2100 schedule to Cork.
There are myriad approaches to night photography. In this instance, I worked with my Lumix LX7 without a tripod.
I’m fortunate because I have an unusually steady hand. The Lumix further aids my efforts because it has image stabilization.
I set the camera to ISO 200, and working in ‘A’ (aperture priority) I manually set the lens aperture to its widest opening, which in this case is f1.8. The wider the aperture, the more light passes through the lens to reach the sensor, so having a ‘fast’ lens (one with a small maximum aperture number, such as my f1.8 lens) is a huge benefit.
This set up allowed me work with a 1/10 of second shutter speed, which is adequate speed for a static photograph.
Lumix LX7 photo f1.8 at 1/10th second hand-held, ISO 200, auto white balance. JPG adjusted from a camera RAW file using Lightroom.
Lumix LX7 photo f1.8 at 1/10th second hand-held, auto white balance
If I had been using my FujiFilm XT1 with the kit zoom lens, my widest aperture would have been about f4.5, which is nearly two full stops slower than f1.8, which means at ISO200, I’d require about ½ second exposure to obtain a comparable result, which is too slow for a sharp handheld image in most instances.
Another way of approaching this would be raise the ISO. So with the FujiFilm set up just described, I could increase the ISO setting to 800, which would boost the effective sensitivity of the sensor by two stops (bringing me back up to 1/10thof a second using f4.5). However, this would also boost the noise level and reduce sharpness.
Back in the old days, I would have used Kodachrome, and that would have required a tripod, and probably some filters to colour-correct for the artificial light. Today, digital cameras when set to ‘auto white balance’ do an admirable job of balancing the colour for fluorescent, sodium vapor and other forms of artificial light that tend to tint an image.
Normally for night work with the Lumix, I’d dial in a 1/3 over exposure compensation (+ 1/3 on the exposure compensation dial) however in this situation the relatively bright night sky where low cloud was illuminated by lots of artificial light combined with the silver body of the locomotive and bright platform lighting, obviated the need for boosting the exposure by 1/3 of a stop.
However, I did make some very subtle changes in post processing to help visually separate the roof of the locomotive from the sky.
Low clouds, bright city lights, and lots of freight on the move; that was my brief experience touring Houston’s railroad yards on the evening of December 18, 2018.
Tom Kline gave my father and me a whirlwind tour and I made atmospheric grab shots as we drove around.
The photos here were made using high-ISO on my FujiFilm XT1. These were made ‘on the fly’, handheld from Tom’s truck without benefit of a tripod or set up time.
I was delighted with my results and I’ve promised Tom that someday I’ll return for some daylight photography.
These photos were exposed using my resuscitated Lumix LX7. I worked in RAW and adjusted the files in post processing to optimize highlight and shadow placement, present more pleasing contrast, and improve color saturation.
