by Steve Eshom on June 28, 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.
- 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!
- 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.
- Use tracking focus (called AI Servo on Canon gear) to continually refocus as the train moves by the camera.
- Take plenty of photos and throw away those that are not focused or panned just right.
- Enjoy!
Besides the one I posted at rrf.com here’s a few of my other favorites.
Torn Tarp
Building America
X-KAL
Technorati Tags: trains, railroad, photos, photography, pan, panning, vancouver, washington
by Steve Eshom on June 24, 2008
by Steve Eshom on June 16, 2008
by Aaron Hockley on June 9, 2008
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
.
Empire Builder eastbound at Stevenson
Technorati Tags: trains, railroad, bnsf, amtrak, photos, railfan, railfanning, columbiarivergorge
by Steve Eshom on June 8, 2008
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.
Technorati Tags: trains, railroad, railfan, photography, photograph, CN, BNSF, Vancouver, Washington, SD50F
