{"id":43293,"date":"2026-01-07T06:27:00","date_gmt":"2026-01-07T11:27:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/briansolomon.com\/trackingthelight\/?p=43293"},"modified":"2026-01-03T20:45:22","modified_gmt":"2026-01-04T01:45:22","slug":"nocturnal-passage-amtrak-keystone-645","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/briansolomon.com\/trackingthelight\/nocturnal-passage-amtrak-keystone-645\/","title":{"rendered":"Nocturnal Passage; Amtrak Keystone 645"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

In the dark of a winter’s evening, I worked with my Nikon Z6-III fitted to a 3pod tripod to compose a scene near Amtrak’s Harrisburg Line\u2014the former PRR electrified route connecting Philadelphia with the state capital.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Amtrak Keystone<\/em> 645 had departed Parkesburg, Pa., and was only minutes away.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

My challenge was trying to focus the camera in the inky blackness. I don’t trust the camera’s autofocus system in extremely low light, because I’ve found it has a tendency to ‘hunt’ if the the light changes suddenly, which can result in a photo that is completely out of focus.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Luckily, one of the features of the Nikon Z cameras is the ability to enlarge the scene in the view finder which makes it easier to focus manually.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

By the time the headlights of the westward train began to illuminate the scene I was all set. As the train approach and passed me, I made this sequence of trailing images (the train was moving away from me) with the camera set to ISO 64000. I processed the NEF RAW files with DxO PureRaw to eliminate noise and correct for lens imperfections.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Tracking the Light explores railroad photography at night!<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In the dark of a winter’s evening, I worked with my Nikon Z6-III fitted to a 3pod tripod to compose a scene near Amtrak’s Harrisburg Line\u2014the former PRR electrified route connecting Philadelphia with the state capital.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":43296,"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":[6060,10,6108,48],"tags":[5028,4049,5423,6310],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/briansolomon.com\/trackingthelight\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/20260101-Amtrak_Keystone_645_Harrisburg_line_at_night_Hoover_Road_Gap_Pa_DSC_0620.jpg?fit=2048%2C1369","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p2BVuC-bgh","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/briansolomon.com\/trackingthelight\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43293"}],"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=43293"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/briansolomon.com\/trackingthelight\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43293\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":43299,"href":"http:\/\/briansolomon.com\/trackingthelight\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43293\/revisions\/43299"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/briansolomon.com\/trackingthelight\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/43296"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/briansolomon.com\/trackingthelight\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=43293"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/briansolomon.com\/trackingthelight\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=43293"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/briansolomon.com\/trackingthelight\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=43293"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}