Ulster Transport Museum at Cultra

The Ulster Transport Museum at Cultra (in Co. Down, Northern Ireland) has one of the finest static displays of restored vintage railway equipment.

This is comparable to the Railroad Museum of Pennsylvania and California State Railroad Museum and well worth a visit.

Kris and I paid a visit to Cultra at the end of March and I made this selection of photos using my Nikon Z7-II.

Since the lighting is contrasty and relatively dim, I set the camera to record at comparably high-ISO. While this resulted in comparably pixelated images, found the overall quality of the photographs very satisfactory.

Where possible, I lowered the ISO to allow for higher image quality. However, since I exposing everything hand-held, I didn’t want to use a shutter speed much slower than about 1/15th of a second.

In post-processing, I lightened shadow areas and controlled highlights, while lowering overall contrast in order to improve the overall image quality, while preserving the relative atmosphere of the museum environment.

Adobe Lightroom work window showing camera settings (at right).
Adobe Lightroom work window showing adjustments to exposure, contrast, highlights and shadow areas.
ISO 4000, f4.0, 1/60th second, Nikon Z7-II with 24-70mm Z-series zoom at 63mm. RAW Files scaled for internet without postprocessing adjustments to contrast, exposure, highlights or shadows.
ISO 4000, f4.0, 1/125th second, Nikon Z7-II with 24-70mm Z-series zoom at 63mm. RAW Files scaled for internet without post-processing adjustments to contrast, exposure, highlights or shadows.

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