{"id":42891,"date":"2025-11-21T06:05:00","date_gmt":"2025-11-21T11:05:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/briansolomon.com\/trackingthelight\/?p=42891"},"modified":"2025-11-21T07:24:43","modified_gmt":"2025-11-21T12:24:43","slug":"well-timed-visit-to-columbia","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/briansolomon.com\/trackingthelight\/well-timed-visit-to-columbia\/","title":{"rendered":"Well Timed Visit to Columbia"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

The other evening we arrived near the old Pennsylvania Railroad station in Columbia, Pa., just as the signal displayed slow-clear for a westward movement at Cola from the Columbia Secondary onto the Port Road Branch.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Within a minute we could hear a train whistling for crossings up the line.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I set up my tripod and opted to experiment with my Nikon Z7-II fitted with my f2.8 70-200mm lens for action rail night photography. The last time I made photo here I’d worked with my 24-70mm and made a wide angle view with the full moon. This time I’d compose view tightly on the approaching train.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Just as I got the camera set up the level crossing signals started flashing, the gates came down, and the rail glinted from the lights of Norfolk Southern’s H19 local.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I adjusted the ISO on my camera to 25,600 and set the aperture to f2.8.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Once the autofocus had locked on to the lights of the lead engine, I switched the focus to ‘manual’ so the headlights wouldn’t confuse the focus setting; then I made this series of images.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The camera’s NEF RAW files were processed using DxO PureRaw to created DNG files, which I then imported into Lightroom for adjustment.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Tracking the Light seeks out the night<\/strong>!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The other evening we arrived near the old Pennsylvania Railroad station in Columbia, Pa., just as the signal displayed slow-clear for a westward movement at Cola from the Columbia Secondary onto the Port Road Branch.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":42895,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"","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],"tags":[8434,7568,5383,7569,5073,8435],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/briansolomon.com\/trackingthelight\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/20251115-NS_6977_H19_at_Cola_Columbia_PA_DSC_6688.jpg?fit=2048%2C1374","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p2BVuC-b9N","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/briansolomon.com\/trackingthelight\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42891"}],"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=42891"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"http:\/\/briansolomon.com\/trackingthelight\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42891\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":42919,"href":"http:\/\/briansolomon.com\/trackingthelight\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42891\/revisions\/42919"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/briansolomon.com\/trackingthelight\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/42895"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/briansolomon.com\/trackingthelight\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=42891"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/briansolomon.com\/trackingthelight\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=42891"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/briansolomon.com\/trackingthelight\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=42891"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}