{"id":45146,"date":"2026-09-29T07:24:05","date_gmt":"2026-09-29T11:24:05","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/briansolomon.com\/trackingthelight\/?p=45146"},"modified":"2026-09-29T07:24:05","modified_gmt":"2026-09-29T11:24:05","slug":"i-cant-believe-i-did-this","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/briansolomon.com\/trackingthelight\/i-cant-believe-i-did-this\/","title":{"rendered":"I Can’t Believe I Did This!"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

If thirty-five years ago you had told me that I’d be able to photograph high-speed trains at night, I’d have thought you were talking about blurry streaks through the darkness.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

However, in 2026 I have the tools in hand to freeze an Amtrak Acela traveling at more than 100 mph at night\u2014and without flash.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Kris and I arrived at the Newark, Delaware, station with enough time for me to check the asmtransitdocs.com app on my phone.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cAcela 2128 is through Elkton. We should be seeing a headlight in about two minutes.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I grabbed my Nikon Z7-II fitted with my Nikkor \u201cFast Fifty.\u201d I saw the rapidly approaching headlight and quickly set the camera to ISO 25,800, with the shutter speed set to \u201cAuto.\u201d Bright lights illuminated the station platforms.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A new Acela set blitzed through the station traveling at 108 mph.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I was able to use a shutter speed of 1\/1,600 of a second, which froze the motion of the train. The results astounded me.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"
Trailing view of Amtrak’s Acela <\/em>passing the station at Newark, Delaware. Photo exposed using ambient light at 1\/1600 second.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
\"\"
Amtrak’s Acela at 108mph! In this view you can see the bright platform lights that illuminated the scene.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Tracking the Light Pushes the Limits of Railroad Night Photography!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

If thirty-five years ago you had told me that I’d be able to photograph high-speed trains at night, I’d have thought you were talking about blurry streaks through the darkness.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"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":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false}}},"categories":[10],"tags":[5120,8793,7672,5423,31],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p2BVuC-bKa","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/briansolomon.com\/trackingthelight\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/45146"}],"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=45146"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/briansolomon.com\/trackingthelight\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/45146\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":45149,"href":"http:\/\/briansolomon.com\/trackingthelight\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/45146\/revisions\/45149"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/briansolomon.com\/trackingthelight\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=45146"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/briansolomon.com\/trackingthelight\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=45146"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/briansolomon.com\/trackingthelight\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=45146"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}