Tag Archives: #sunburst

Tips and Technique

Sunburst at Deerfield!

In yesterday’s Tracking the Light, I described the challenges of when a fluffy cloud obscures the sun beneath an otherwise blue sky. The opposite is a burst of direct sun through an otherwise overcast sky.

On Thursday, May 12, 2022, after departing Bernardston, Massachusetts, Kris and I zipped down to Pan Am’s yard at East Deerfield and set up at the east end overlooking the Connecticut River Bridge. Here the Deerfield hump engine was gradually shoving a long cut of cars. This is a blue, black & white, EMD switcher working with slug..

About the same time an eastward freight moved on the the bridge on the opposite track.

For a brief moment a burst of sunlight illuminated both trains on the bridge, making for a stunning setting in cosmic light.

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In this scenario, the exposure trick is to quickly getting the optimal exposure and not to allow the highlight areas to receive too much light relative to the rest of the scene.

photography

Snow Train Silhouette

Yesterday morning, I photographed Conway Scenic’s Snow Train as it crossed the River Road bridge in North Conway, NH bound for Attitash.

The sun was directly behind the train, and if working with conventional theory for railroad photography I might have dismiss these lighting conditions as unworkable.

This is the scaled image but otherwise unmodified from the camera RAW file. This was before I made the adjustments as described below.

Instead, I opted for a sunburst silhouette. Working with my FujiFilm XT1 and 16-55mm Fujinon zoom lens, I set the aperture manually to f22 (the smallest setting). By using the smallest lens opening, I caused diffraction of the direct sunlight that results in the sunburst effect. This is enhanced by filtering the sunlight through the tree branches against a clear blue sky. I adjusted my exposure to maximize the sun burst, which resulted in underexposure of the main subject, which is GP35 216 leading the Snow Train.

After exposure, I walked back to my office at the North Conway Station to adjust the image for final presentation. First I converted the Fuji RAW file using Iridient X-Transformer, and then imported this into Adobe Lightroom. I lightened the overall exposure, while lowering highlights to make the most of the sunburst, then lightened the shadow areas to brighten up the train. Finally, I boosted overall image saturation to make sky seem more blue, and lowered contrast to lower the impact of the photograph. 

My sunburst silhouette after adjustment. Notice I minimized the wire in the sky at top right.

These adjustments required less time than the five-minute walk from River Road to the North Conway Station.

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Sunbursts at Buzzards Bay.

After departing Cape Cod in early November, we paused near the massive lift bridge and old station and signal tower at Buzzards Bay, Massachusetts.

The railroad was quiet, but I made a few photos of the structures there using my Nikon Z6 mirrorless digital camera.

Setting the aperture to its smallest position—f22—allowed me to make sunbursts silhouetts with the midday sun.

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