Archive for June, 2008

As I mentioned in a previous post railroadforums.com’s advanced topics challenge this month is ‘creative panning’.  To create a contest entry I shot quite a few photos through the month of June.   I ended up with about a half dozen I really liked and now I’ve posted my favorite from the month in the contest gallery.  If you are a rrf.com member, please make sure you vote for your favorite image when Leia releases the poll next week.

In my previous post I mentioned some items that I had learned while experimenting.  At the end of the month here’s my favorite tips on panning.

1. Use a tripod.  The tripod helps with some of the unwanted vertical motion blur.  Of course you still have to keep up with the train as it moves across the scene!
2. Shutter speed I found had to be regulated by train speed.  Generally trains moving 20 m.p.h. or slower need a 1/10th second shutter speed or slower to capture decent motion.  From there 1/15th second worked well up to around 35 m.p.h. and speeds above that worked well with 1/20th, 1/30th, and 1/40th of a second. 
3. Use tracking focus (called AI Servo on Canon gear) to continually refocus as the train moves by the camera. 
4. Take plenty of photos and throw away those that are not focused or panned just right.
5. Enjoy!

Besides the one I posted at rrf.com here’s a few of my other favorites.

Torn Tarp

Building America

X-KAL

…can’t a war hero get some peace and quiet around here?

A portrait honoring General George Marshall is one part of the mural decorating the concrete wall supporting BNSF’s Fallbridge subdivision along 4th St. in Vancouver, WA.

This graffiti rolled in front of my camera on Sunday….

This, of course, is not directed at any readers of this blog. 

No, not the New River Gorge, but rather some new angles on the Columbia River Gorge. Like Steve, it’s always interesting ot find some new photos rather than the same spots that are often photographed over and over. Here are a few new shots that were new for me on our last trip to the Gorge:

East of Home Valley, the river scenery dwarfs a train

Commerce on the Move at North Bonneville

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Empire Builder eastbound at Stevenson

We don’t see SD50Fs around Vancouver much.  Since only 60 were built for CN a visit to Canada was about the only way to lay eyes on them.   For us in the “other Vancouver” this makes these a rarity.  Add in the fact they are 23 years old and that most railroads have eliminated their 50 series locomotives and you come up with the word ”unusual”.

Today two visited (5411 and 5409) town on the H-EVEABN and combined with the classic SD40-2Ws made up what could be called the “Retro Consist of the Week”.   For a moment it was 1985 in Vancouver.

Speaking of the 80s I dug through my print collection and found this photo of 5431 leading a westbound train out of Boston Bar on August 8, 1987.  I remember how excited I was to see this pair of new units.  At the time CN was dominated by one version of the SD40 or another so these “Draper Tapers”offered something different….just like they did today.

rrf.com is at it again with another advanced topics challenge.   This month it is ‘creative panning’.  Of course with trains there’s always movement so panning opportunities abound! (well at least there should be some movement eventually, maybe, someday)   On Sunday, the first day of the challenge, I tried my hand at a couple of pans and had mixed results.  My photos ranged from completely blurry to pretty sharp and dramatic.  Some of the things I noticed are:

1. Slow moving trains in bright light are difficult to pan.  When it is so bright the shutter speed has to be so slow that getting the wanted blur causes unwanted blurs.  A couple of my attempts were at 1/10 @ f/22 which is the minimum aperture for my lens. 
2. Sharpness is difficult to achieve when attempting a pan.  There are two causes, the slow shutter speed and where the focus point is set.  I found I have to pre-focus the camera at the spot where I want to take the image and then track the subject into that spot.  I’m also going to try using my camera’s tracking focus to see how that works out.
3. Trains moving above 40 m.p.h. gave the most dramatic pan effects.

To help with some of the observations I’m considering trying the tripod.  This will require carefully levelling to make sure I can successfully pan along a level horizon.  I’m sure some practice with it will also be required.

It should be fun to work on this throughout the month!

The M-PTLPAS crosses Eighth St. and heads out of town.