On Friday evening, Strasburg Rail Road 4-8-0 475 made a stunning display of steam and smoke as it climbed the short grade at Carpenters on its return run from Leaman Place to Strasburg, Pa.

Filtered low sun made for romantic light as the engine emerged from a copse of trees near the Carpenters Cemetery off Blackhorse Road. I made this sequence of photos using my Nikon Z6 with 70-200mm lens.

Working with the NEF RAW files in Adobe Lightroom, I made a series of adjustments to improve the apparent dynamic range and color saturation of the photos.

One my tricks for making more effective digital photos with the Nikon Z cameras is to pay careful attention to the in-camera histogram to make sure I have captured sufficient hightlight and shadow detail. This often results in a slightly dark in-camera JPG, but by working with the NEF file, I have ample data to make for a much better full-range final image.

The best part of being there on Friday evening was listening to the locomotive exhaust as it slowly ascended the grade. This was the sound of a century-old technology rippling across a pastoral landscape. Something that was once common and unremarkable, and now only exists for our pleasure.

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