Tag Archives: Reading

photography

Steam at Cressona, Pennsylvania.

In December 2015, Pat Yough and I photographed restored Central Railroad of New Jersey 0-6-0 113 working excursions on the former Reading Company at Cressona, Pennsylvania.

Photographing with my FujiFilm XT1 mirrorless digital camera, I made this telephoto view of a westward excursion threading its way through Reading & Northern’s yard.

I like the composition featuring the complicated track work.

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RDC’s at Jim Thorpe, Pennsylvania—lessons in high light.

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Shiny stainless steel trains in high summer light. Another photography challenge.

Earlier this month during my explorations of eastern Pennsylvania with Pat Yough, we traveled on the Reading & Northern from Reading Outer Station to Jim Thorpe, aboard a restored pair of RDCs.

The train arrived at Jim Thorpe in the highlight, in other words when the sun is nearly overhead.

Working with my FujiFilm X-T1, I made a variety of images, then imported the RAW files into Lightroom for post processing.

As previously described in Tracking the Light, among the tools available with post processing software are various exposure and contrast controls that make it possible to adjust the RAW file to produce a more pleasing final image.

By lowering highlights, and raising the shadows, while adjusting color temperature, I can maximize the information captured by the camera sensor to produce a more pleasing image that more closely resembles what I saw at the time of exposure.

Below are a few of my processed images.

Shortly after arrival from Reading, Reading & Northern’s RDCs have paused in front of the historic former Central Railroad of New Jersey station at Jim Thorpe. I’ve attempted to make a more pleasing image by lightening shadows and controlling highlights while slightly warming the color temperature to compensate for the proliferation of blue light.

This is a similar image but taken from an in-camera Jpg with pre-selected Fuji Velvia digital color profile.

Back lit in the gorge near Jim Thorpe. Here a silver train has a contrast advantage over a darkly painted engine.

Later in the afternoon the lighting wasn’t as harsh, yet this image still required improvements in post processing to compensate for excessive contrast.

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Old Reading RDCs at Reading & Northern’s Reading Outer Station, Reading Pennsylvania.

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Just checking to see if you are reading this correctly.

Last weekend, July 8 and9, 2017, Patrick Yough and I made trips to Reading, Pennsylvania to photograph and travel on Reading & Northern’s former Reading Company Budd RDCs.

I grew up with the old ‘Budd cars’ and it was neat to see these machines on the roll again.

Budd introduced it’s self-propelled ‘Rail Diesel Car’ in 1949, and sold them to many railroads across North America. These cars were most common in the Northeast, and the Reading Company was among the lines that made good use of them in passenger service.

I exposed these views using my FujiFilm X-T1 with Zeiss 12mm Tuoit lens.

Reading & Northern operates these RDCs in periodic excursion service on its lines in eastern Pennsylvania.

A new tower, and a really antique signal made for nice props for the RDCs at Reading Outer Station.

Reading & Northern operates these RDCs in periodic excursion service on its lines in eastern Pennsylvania.

 

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