{"id":14345,"date":"2016-03-02T06:23:38","date_gmt":"2016-03-02T11:23:38","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/briansolomon.com\/trackingthelight\/?p=14345"},"modified":"2016-03-01T18:40:38","modified_gmt":"2016-03-01T23:40:38","slug":"tracking-the-light-photo-tip-dont-do-what-i-did","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/briansolomon.com\/trackingthelight\/tracking-the-light-photo-tip-dont-do-what-i-did\/","title":{"rendered":"Tracking the Light Photo Tip: Don\u2019t Do What I Did!"},"content":{"rendered":"

Yesterday (March 1, 2016) I posted a view of a CSX intermodal train working upgrade at Warren, Massachusetts in the nice morning sun. This was a nice start to a very productive day.<\/p>\n

What I didn\u2019t explain was the back-story.<\/p>\n

Although I\u2019ve been at railway photography for more than four decades and I spend a lot of time at making my photographs. Occasionally I make mistakes.<\/p>\n

Some are minor ones. Others can have more serious implications.<\/p>\n

On Saturday February 26th<\/sup>, I was traveling with Mike Gardner. We\u2019d met Tim Doherty and Pat Yough at CP83 (near the Steaming Tender restaurant) in Palmer, Massachusetts.<\/p>\n

Shortly after we arrived, CSX\u2019s talking equipment detector in Wilbraham sounded, alerting us to the eastward train. We decided to drive to West Warren to make our photographs. We had ample time to do this, but not enough time to waste.<\/p>\n

Upon arriving in West Warren, I noticed that both my Lumix LX7 and FujiFilm X-T1 cameras had only a few photos left on their respective cards. I should have checked this the night before and put fresh cards in the cameras.<\/p>\n

However, since I had a minute, I hastily put new cards in the cameras and wiped them clean.<\/p>\n

\"This<\/a>
This was the photo presented with yesterday’s post, but I thought I’d put up again for context (it doesn’t cost anything extra to show it twice, so why not?).
Exposed with a FujiFilm X-T1 digital camera.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The day was extraordinarily productive. Mike and I photographed trains on CSX, New England Central, Berkshire Scenic and Pan Am Railways, making it Millers Falls, the Hoosac Tunnel, and Washington Summit among other notable locations.<\/p>\n

My Fuji camera was acting strange.<\/p>\n

\"New<\/a>
New England Central local freight crosses CSX’s Boston & Albany line at Palmer.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Among other problems, it was taking forever to store the images from the camera buffer to the card. I\u2019d expose a burst of images, and two minutes later it would still storing them.<\/p>\n

Meanwhile the Lumix was giving me so much bother, I put it down and instead opted to work with my Canon EOS 3 loaded with slide film.<\/p>\n

\"Pan<\/a>
Pan Am Railway’s EDRJ (East Deerfield to Rotterdam Junction) roars west at Wisdom Way in Greenfield. I was snapping away, but something wasn’t right. My camera was acting weird!<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

By the end of the day, I notice that the 32GB card in the Fuji was nearly out of space, but I\u2019d only exposed about 150 frames. (Normally I get about 840 images saved as RAW and JPG on a 32GB card). Something was wrong.<\/p>\n

I was getting a bit worried, because the next day I was booked on a transatlantic flight, and there\u2019s nothing worse than having serious camera trouble when traveling.<\/p>\n

\"A<\/a>
A little later in the day, here’s the same EDRJ climbing toward the Hoosac Tunnel at Zoar, Massachusetts. I recalled a day about 30 years ago at this precise location when the last thing I was worried about was the card in my digital camera!<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Digital cameras don\u2019t start acting strange because they are in a bad mood.<\/p>\n

However, when I went to down load my photographs, I quickly discovered the source of my problems.<\/p>\n

\"Between<\/a>
Between a stop for lunch and our next destination, Mike and I paused at Renfrew on the old B&A North Adams branch to photograph the Berkshire Scenic train. This was our second trip along the branch in less than two weeks.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

In my rush to put cards in the cameras, I inadvertently put the card formatted for the Fuji in the Lumix and vice versa. Also, rather than re-format the cards, I simply wiped them. Each type of digital camera uses different protocols for storing data, which is why the cameras were acting slow.<\/p>\n

I put new cards in each camera and re-formatted them (which effectively erases all data on the card). Problem solved.<\/p>\n

Tip for the day: Don\u2019t mix your cards up, take the time before embarking on a fast-paced day to make sure you have clean, formatted cards in your digital camera(s).<\/p>\n

Or, if you use film, to make sure your camera is loaded and that your ISO setting is correct.<\/p>\n

\"Amtrak<\/a>
Amtrak 449, the Lake Shore Limited passes Muddy Pond in Washington, Massachusetts.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"Amtrak<\/a>
Amtrak 448 meets a CSX freight at CP83 in Palmer just after sundown. Exposed with my FujiFilm XT-1 with Zeiss 12mm Touit and Lee graduated neutral density filter. ISO 3200. At this stage the camera was barely functioning and taking forever to store images. I’m amazed I got anything at all!<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Tracking the Light posts EVERY DAY!<\/span><\/strong><\/h2>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Yesterday (March 1, 2016) I posted a view of a CSX intermodal train working upgrade at Warren, Massachusetts in the nice morning sun. This was a nice start to a very productive day. What I didn\u2019t explain was the back-story. Although I\u2019ve been at railway photography for more than four decades and I spend a … Continue reading Tracking the Light Photo Tip: Don\u2019t Do What I Did!<\/span> →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":14341,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_s2mail":"yes","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"footnotes":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false}}},"categories":[10,48],"tags":[3786,41,35,39,3377,3378,7535],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/briansolomon.com\/trackingthelight\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/03\/Pan_Am_EDRJ_Zoar_DSCF1946.jpg?fit=2449%2C1633","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p2BVuC-3Jn","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/briansolomon.com\/trackingthelight\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14345"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/briansolomon.com\/trackingthelight\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/briansolomon.com\/trackingthelight\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/briansolomon.com\/trackingthelight\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/briansolomon.com\/trackingthelight\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=14345"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/briansolomon.com\/trackingthelight\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14345\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":14347,"href":"http:\/\/briansolomon.com\/trackingthelight\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14345\/revisions\/14347"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/briansolomon.com\/trackingthelight\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/14341"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/briansolomon.com\/trackingthelight\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=14345"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/briansolomon.com\/trackingthelight\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=14345"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/briansolomon.com\/trackingthelight\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=14345"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}