Archive for January, 2006

Today as I was pondering when to leave the office for my lunch break I was told there was an empty Rivergate train leaving with a CP unit on the point. I finished up what I was working on and made my way down to the depot just to see the train curve around towards 8th street. Not only did it have a CP AC4400 on the point, its sole other power was another CP AC4400 and it had a uniform set of Canpotex gray hoppers. Even though the weather was dark and quite crappy, this was a good catch and needed to be shot.

After checking that nothing was being demolished yet at 8th Street, I drove east and parked in the gravel lot on the south side of the tracks near Wintler Park, and walked back up and across to find a photo angle. Given the gray skies I decided to go with a 300mm telesmash and ended up shooting a couple shots… the first would’ve played right into the hands of those headlight blob guys so I won’t bother showing it here. Instead you get what happens when I get a bit artsy-fartsy.

• Chicago above the rails
  A photo montage of Chicago, with photos taken from the elevated rail lines
  (tags: art chicago photos transit)
• Trains of the Pacific Northwest
  Marlin Thorman’s homepage (formerly westbnsf.com)
  (tags: railroad photographers)

If I were to list out all the excellent railroad photographer sites I’m going to run out of room on the sidebar of the blog. I’m replacing that list with this post (which is now linked to from the sidebar).

Brian Ambrose
Chuck Donaldson
Dan Schwanz
Don Bowen
Don Winslow
Jacob Klatt
Jeff Bass
Joel Ashcroft
Keith Burgess
Marlin Thorman
Paul Petersen
Rick Newton
Robert Morris
Robert Scott
Steve Eshom
Steve Sloan
Swami

Lately I’ve had a couple people ask about what gear I use so I figured I’d post something that I can point to.

My camera body is a Canon EOS-300D also known as the Digital Rebel. It’s a 6.3 megapixel DSLR. I got this body in December 2003 and have been quite happy with the results. There’s newer, better bodies out there, but I’ll be honest I only have one complaint with the 300D, and that is that I wished it had a bit bigger buffer… the buffer will only hold 4 RAW images. I have the battery grip BG-E1 which I value more for the vertical controls than I do for the second battery compartment.

I pretty much always shoot in RAW mode. Sure, the files are bigger and require more post-processing, but RAW gives me the flexibility to make color and white-balance adjustments that I don’t always want to trust to the camera in the field. If you’re attending GorgeRail, Paul Petersen will be doing a workshop on digital image processing, and he’s a great source of knowledge for everything you ever wanted to know about RAW.

I carry around a few lenses and am looking to add a few more.

When I bought the camera I got the “kit” with the EF-S 18-55mm f/3.5-5.6 zoom. I’ve been satisfied with this lens; it’s definitely worth the $100 which it cost me. It’s not the fastest lens in the world but it’s very light and the optics are pretty good. It’s a decent lens for roster shots.

My main everyday walkaround lens is the EF 28-135mm f/3.5-5.6 IS zoom. It runs around $425 and is a great value. I find it to occasionally be a bit soft but not very often, and not enough that I’m gonna chuck this and replace it with primes (well, at least not yet). The IS is great for hand-holding. I use this lens for almost all of my around-town roster shots and close-ups. About the only time I use the 18-55 is if I need to go wider than the 28mm on this lens.

I also have the EF 50mm f/1.8 prime lens, which is a bargain with a street price around $70. This is an entry-level lens, without USM focusing, but the speed is great for low-light situations and the price can’t be beat. Specifically related to railfanning, if I need to do a low-light roster shot I’ll throw on this lens.

My newest lens is the EF 135mm f/2L prime. I wanted something fast around this focal length. I have been quite happy with this lens, which works nicely with the Canon 1.4 extender to give me a f/2.8 prime around 190mm.

My big lens is a EF 300mm f/4L IS prime, which is excellent for long telephoto shots. This lens is tack-sharp. It can be handheld with the IS although I usually use it on my monopod which works out well. My only complaint is that shooting head-on telephoto shots in low light often causes the autofocus to hunt due to the locmotive headlights. Pre-focusing is your friend.

I carry everything around in a LowePro Mini Trekker AW which is a backpack-style bag which has ample space for two bodies and several lenses. It has several pouches inside as well as a couple outside zippered pockets. The “AW” in the name stands for All-Weather, which is because of the built-in fold-away nylon cover which covers up the whole thing if needed. Given the downpours we can have up in this area, the rain cover is a nice feature.

I have a Bogen 681B monopod with a 3229 tilt/swivel head. This is a sturdy monopod which I use almost all the time except for quick grab shots. I also have a cheap Vivitar tripod that I use for night shots. When using the tripod I’ll usually use a remote shutter release.

That’s the majority of what I carry around all the time to take pictures. The few other random things in my camera bag aren’t of much interest (lens cleaning supplies, a washcloth to dry off lenses, and some sporks).

In the process of re-classifying all my images into iMatch I’m getting to see some of my shots that I’d forgotten or hadn’t remembered. Here’s one of a garbage train passing along a cliff around milepost 70 on the BNSF Fallbridge Sub.

• The Forgotten Lens
  Gary Voth professes his love for the 50mm prime
  (tags: photography lenses)
• Canon EF Lens Lineup
  Canon’s official page for their series of EF SLR lenses
  (tags: canon lenses photography)
• BNSF Locomotive Photos
  A large database of roster shots of BNSF locomotives
  (tags: bnsf railroad rosters photos)

For those of you coming to GorgeRail (or for those of you who need just a bit more arm-twisting), here’s some links related to railfanning in the area…

Railfan Guides:
Funnelfan’s Columbia River Gorge Railfan Guide
Railfan Field Guide: The UPRR in Oregon

Gorge Photos:
Northwest Trains - Postcards from the Columbia River Gorge and elsewhere
Swamiphoto
BNSFFoamer.com
Steve Eshom Photography
GorgeRail 2003 Photos from Steve Eshom

If you know any other good Gorge links which should be on this list, leave me a comment…

Last Saturday, the Mt. Rainier Scenic Railroad hosted a “Winter Steam Spectacular” — a day of events aimed solely at railfan photographers as opposed to their general tourist excursion trains. They brought out three operating steam locomotives with three trains and did several runbys in a few locations. Here’s three photos which illustrate the beauty of steam on a crisp winter day.

After over a month of wet gray weather, the sun returned to Vancouver for a few days. Yesterday while at 8th street I shot a Chicago-bound stack train. This photo bugs the hell out of me. As a photographer, one of the issues with composing a decent photo is trying to get things level. Things which are horizontal in real life should be horizontal in the photo. Things which are vertical in real life should be vertical in the photo. When things that should be, aren’t, the shit hits the fan and it annoys the hell out of me. I looked at this one long and hard using the grid in Photoshop. The damn train is crooked. Apparently it was crooked in real life. The preponderance of vertical things (power poles, signal masts, and building corners) are straight as verified by my Photoshop gridlines. The train is just plain crooked. I guess I should be pleased it’s an accurate photograph, I just wish I was more pleased with the real world it represents.

The sunny weather yesterday was replaced today by a nice heavy rain with a bit of wind. Yesterday I had to worry about sun angles and shadows, today my main concern was with keeping my equipment dry and avoiding raindrops on the glass. I was doing a quick drive around the Vancouver shops when I got a message from a friend that there was a UP Officer’s Special southbound at Ridgefield. The lighting was crap, the weather was crap, but a poor photo beats no photo, at least from a railfan’s perspective. I drove down to the center and got a couple shots of the UP 8358 with the Stanford and Sunset. You can get a feel for the weather from the color of the sky, the color of the background objects, and the ditch lights reflecting off the platforms.

Update: In a comment, Mike asked if the train was occupied. It was. I didn’t see activity in the Stanford, but there were several folks in the Sunset, including one who gave me a nice hearty wave from the rear observation window. The train was later referred to on the radio as the “Vice President’s Special”.

• Camera Raw Formats - A Reference
  Very technical information about particular digital camera RAW formats
  (tags: cameras raw imaging photography)

In Vancouver, right next to the railroad location of 8th Street, at the interesection of 8th and Jefferson, is a landmark. It’s a restaurant, formerly known as The Crossing, Ballew’s at The Crossing, and most recently Seventh Street Station. The restaurant is comprised of several old passenger cars and a caboose, with a semaphore on the roof and an SP&S boxcar out front for scenery.

For the past couple weeks, workers have been hauling things out of the inside. Today I found out that next week, the railroad cars will be lifted with cranes and taken away. The building is to be demolished shortly.

I don’t know the future plans. It’s probably part of some grand “redevelopment” scheme. Railfans will miss the restaurant and its convenient parking lot, which has been the home to many photos taken over the past several decades.

The former BN Pacific Pride unit is still in active service, although looking a little worn and not quite so proud. Today I caught it bringing the Camas Turn out of the yard.

Here’s a shot taken on Labor Day last year of the Washington Park & Zoo Railway’s steam enginer, number 1, as it chugs out towards Washington Park.

Under the “random cool shit that can be done with scripting in IMatch” category:

A script to import Google Earth coordinates into IMatch to be associated with a particular image.

Someone then took that script and made it go the other way, so once you have an image with associated coordinates, you can launch Google Earth from within IMatch and “fly” to that location.

I was cataloging some images tonight and decided I’d post one… we sure as hell aren’t seeing any decent weather like this around here right now, so here’s a shot from Hodge, California, from September 2004.

• Railway Technical: Signalling Pages
  A detailed look at railroad signalling systems in the UK
  (tags: railroad signalling electronics UK)

• A Desire Named Streetcar: How Federal Subsidies Encourage Wasteful Local Transit Systems
  An interesting study that argues the current system for Federal funding of mass transit is wasteful
  (tags: transit transportation government waste)

I’m excited to announce that tickets are now available for GorgeRail 2006, to be held the weekend of May 19-21st in The Dalles, Oregon. This year we’re featuring presenters from Maryland to California, with show topics covering everything from Alaska to China.

All of the details and ticket purchase information can be found at http://www.gorgerail.com

Nikon announced last week their almost-abandonment of the film camera market.

Today, Konica-Minolta went one step further: they’re quitting the photo business entirely.

EMDX 9044 leads the G-MNSKAL across the viaduct near 5th street in Vancouver today. I need to play around with this viaduct a bit more…