{"id":44273,"date":"2026-05-18T06:24:00","date_gmt":"2026-05-18T10:24:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/briansolomon.com\/trackingthelight\/?p=44273"},"modified":"2026-05-16T17:45:05","modified_gmt":"2026-05-16T21:45:05","slug":"ektachrome-versus-nikon-digital","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/briansolomon.com\/trackingthelight\/ektachrome-versus-nikon-digital\/","title":{"rendered":"Ektachrome versus Nikon Digital"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

In March, I stood trackside at Newark, Delaware with fellow photographer Doug Scott. We were fortunate to catch an Amtrak maintenace train with freshly painted GP38-3 744 in the lead (see: https:\/\/briansolomon.com\/trackingthelight\/fresh-paint-on-a-classic-emd\/<\/a>).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I was working with two cameras; a Nikon Z6 mirrorless digital body with 24-70mm Nikkor Z-series zoom, and my father’s old Leica M4 with f1.4 35mm Summilux prime wide-angle loaded with Kodak Ektachrome 100.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Below are a pair of successive images; the first is a digital image exposed as an NEF RAW image using the Nikon, the second was on Ektachrome with the Leica. The slide was processed at AgX Imaging and scanned using a Nikon LS-5000 scanner. Both received very nominal post-processing in Lightroom to adjust contrast\/gamma, and color bias to make the most of the data captured.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I like both images for different reasons.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Occasionally I’m asked why I continue to work with traditional color slides. That’s a long story. The simplest answers are: aesthetics, continuity and longevity. The latter seems to upset some photographers, so I’ll leave that for a later discussion. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"
Nikon Z6 with 24-70mm set at 70mm.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
\"\"
Ektachrome with the Leica.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Tracking the Light Explores Railroad Photography!<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Occasionally I’m asked why I continue to work with traditional color slides. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":44275,"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":[5028,6504,8647],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/briansolomon.com\/trackingthelight\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/Amtrak_744_w_Loram_ballast_cleaner_Newark_Del_20Mar2026_E100\u00a9Brian_Solomon_210784.jpg?fit=2048%2C1359","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p2BVuC-bw5","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/briansolomon.com\/trackingthelight\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44273"}],"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=44273"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"http:\/\/briansolomon.com\/trackingthelight\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44273\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":44277,"href":"http:\/\/briansolomon.com\/trackingthelight\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44273\/revisions\/44277"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/briansolomon.com\/trackingthelight\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/44275"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/briansolomon.com\/trackingthelight\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=44273"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/briansolomon.com\/trackingthelight\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=44273"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/briansolomon.com\/trackingthelight\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=44273"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}