Tag Archives: #panned photo

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600-Broadside at Atglen

Number 600 is the first of Amtrak’s Siemens Mobility-built ACS-64 electrics. This was named to honor Amtrak president David L. Gunn.

I made this high-speed broadside pan of the class leader as it worked the back of a Keystone train at Atglen, Pa..

I’d set my Nikon Z7-II camera in aperture priority mode and designated the aperture setting at f3.5. This allowed the camera to select the correspodining shutter speed based on the camera’s preselected pattern metering. When I release the shutter, the shutter speed was at 1/800 of a second. (ISO was set to 200)

Owing to the speed of the train, these setting allowed for a slight blurring of the background and foreground, while my panning motion kept the locomotive crisp.

Working with the NEF RAW file, I adjusted the highlight and shadow areas in post processing. I’ve posted two versions below, one is slight brighter with lighter highlights than the other, reflecting nominal changes in post processing settings.

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Botched 1996 Olympic Pan

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On September 10, 1996, I was driving east from Denver to Council Bluffs. Near Kearney, Nebraska, I was following the Union Pacific main line on a secondary road, where I made this panned photo of a westward UP freight train led by SD40-2 1996 specially painted for the 1996 Olympic games.

Working with my Nikon F2 fitted with a 200mm lens and loaded with Kodachrome 200, I panned the unusually painted locomotive to capture the sense of motion.

I’ve always found this photograph unfortunate because: 1) the doors were open on the side of the engine thus spoiling my view of the special paint livery. 2) the distant hill makes for a visually disruptive intersection near the front of the engine just over the top of the short hood.

In retrospect, I’m happy to have the photo, I just wish my execution had been better.

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