This was a wonderfully buggered up opportunity.
The train was later than I expected and I was losing F stops by the minute, so it was rather underexposed as I didn't have time to re-correct when it finally showed up. I wanted a crisper picture so I had the shutter speed set to be able to use F5.6 and it turns out 1/125th was slow enough where I got motion blur because even though the train was fairly slow for a crossing it was faster than I expected because it was a much shorter train than usual. I didn't want to bump the ISO higher for the same reason. Then when I was expecting a brightly colored BNSF engine or something to stand out against the trees, what shows up but a flat black Northern Suffolk engine.
I have a lot to learn about low light moving objects. Tried to PP the light up a bit, but without blowing all the whites completely theres not much to be done and its still fuzzy. Settled on the portrait crop because the original landscape was WAY too zoomed out to see anything and a tighter landscape crop just highlighted how blurry it is. Next time it'll be zoomed in more to start in landscape without the attempt at catching the reflection too.

[rvannatta]

I have a lot to learn about low light moving objects. Tried to PP the light up a bit, but without blowing all the whites completely theres not much to be done and its still fuzzy. Settled on the portrait crop because the original landscape was WAY too zoomed out to see anything and a tighter landscape crop just highlighted how blurry it is. Next time it'll be zoomed in more to start in landscape without the attempt at catching the reflection too.

There is much to be said for using raw mode when you are at risk you can cleanly adjust things in photoshop (elements). I have salvaged
a lot of lulus that simply couldn't have been salvaged if it was already a JPG.

[interested_observer]

Evening, I do like how you framed the shot. It does look a little out of focus. Were you at infinity? I really think that you could let the ISO go to at least 400, maybe 800 and stop down a bit more to get a deeper depth of field. I just recently traded up from a K20 and was probably way too fixed to low ISOs.

I went to an airshow a while back (with my K20) and for me was able to get some pretty good shots. Looking at them later, I do wish I would have upped the ISO and went to a bit faster shutter to better freeze the motion for a sharper image. But all of that is learning - and we will both know better next time.

It was 112 today, and the desert is brown. Really nice to see some green trees and water....

[PPPPPP42]

Was using JPEG+RAW, but that shot was a good idea that was just hosed due to ill preparation. I think I'll try that again at a different time of day. And yes it is very green even in summer, thanks to Duluth all but getting washed away there is a ton of water coming down the river right now too.
Moved to a more appropriate spot nearby for that time of day though and this time SUCCESS.

This is the JPEG straight from the camera, I decided not to fiddle with it even to crop it. Just resized for here.
Apparently these engines are gloss black, not flat black. This is Northern Suffolk engine 9489 (a GE Dash D9-40CW) and engine number 2745 (an EMD SD70M-2) hauling a short load of triple crown semi trailers east bound having just crossed from MN to WI over the swing bridge in Hudson. I was literally leaning on the no trespassing gate leading to the bridge and I think I found just the perfect spot it seems to catch them coming by at the typical 7:45 time in evening light. Nice and slow too thanks to the bridge. BTW I'd like to claim I can tell the difference between those engines, but I thought they were the same model (didn't even know what brand) until I realized the model was printed right under the unit number on the side of both and its readable in the full size.
I just wished I had kept shooting as it passed because the engineer leaned out the window and smiled and waved and it woulda made a perfect shot, I assumed it would be too close to get anything and didn't have time to react when it did. Did get the shot from the other direction though.
Set the camera to shutter priority 250 this time and I think the camera was still on 200 ISO because the light looked good there (no trees to block the low sun in the spot I picked. I used the 24mm end of my A24-50 F4 and anything past 10 feet with that seems to be infinity so it was focused on that.
They both look a tad like the camera had sunglasses on (typical K20D) so I might dink with the RAW's later to lighten them a tad, just wanted to post something now.

[slowpez]

No comment on the photo here but the commentary has set me up for the rest of the day. I enjoyed a great laugh with my coffee, I feel your pain with all the prep having gone for naught but I thank you for the great story just the same.

[wombat2go]

Hey PP
Sounds like you are as busy as a One Legged Ass Kicker when those trains come thru.
Keep up the good work!

[Bill2849]

I think I understand what you were trying to do.

I think that your original photo could either be better composed or better cropped.
I think the train is set up too high in the frame for my taste, relative to the sky and the foreground.
Compositionaly I think you would get a better train picture by either adding more sky over the train or by cropping out some of the foreground (so that the proportion of sky to foreground is better.

But even better I think is that you appear to have a VERY good picture of the bridge over the water and the way the setting sun is reflecting off the bridge and onto the water. I think that if you crop the top off the picture at roughly the level of the bottom of the wire fence on the top of the bridge you would have a very good photo indeed, even though it is not the photo you were trying to take.

Best wishes,
Bill

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Last edited by Bill2849; 06-30-2012 at 09:55 AM.

[PPPPPP42]

You know its funny, afterwords I realized I didn't actually see or hear the train which is interesting because just the lead engine is 425,000 lbs and 73 feet 2 inches long with a 4400 hp V16 diesel engine and it passed within 25 feet of me. I think I get rather focused on my one pass to get it right. I do have the fleeting impression of the nice engineer leaning out for a smile and a wave right as he passed though because I looked up for a second as I swung the camera around. Kinda sucks when I blow the shots though because then I don't get to see the train. Its nice that its a fairly regular schedule though, makes messing it up not such a huge deal, there's always tomorrow.

So should I bump the lighting in general on these just a bit? they seem a tad dark (at least the 2nd one) but I don't want to turn evening into daylight. Also does anyone know if I re-open the JPEG edit it and then re-export it (the only way to save it) does that make the quality from compressing even lower (compressing more with each save)? Maybe I will start with the raw files and fiddle from there but it sucks when I have to redo everything for a tiny modification so I wondered.

EDIT: Bill I will be retaking that it better light eventually, it was more of a duct tape crop than the original intended, originally it was a big landscape orientation but the train looked tiny and got lost so I had to do something. I would love if the water was calm for a perfect reflection but a small dam lets out there and ruffles it up, so maybe i'll just drop it. The sky was cropped out because to recover the train at all it got positively blown to bits and looked mostly white.
I'll see what I get with a proper exposure next time.

[Bill2849]

Also does anyone know if I re-open the JPEG edit it and then re-export it (the only way to save it) does that make the quality from compressing even lower (compressing more with each save)?

As I understand it, you are not compressing more if you open, modify and re-save a jpeg, (assuming that you are saving to the same jpeg settings of the original photo). But you are losing image data (and therefore some degree of image quality) through this process. The difference may very well be so negligible that you wouldn't see a difference.

It is kind of like if you have a copy machine that makes a copy that loses 2% of image data from the original each time you make a copy. If you make a copy on this machine, that copy will likely appear to be indistinguishable to most eyes from the original. But if you take a copy of that first copy, take a copy of the second copy and so forth you will definitely end up with an image that is visibly different from the original.

Many programs that process RAW allow you to undo various levels of processing which greatly facilitates the undo/redo process. Another option is to save the original jpeg to a lossless compression format (such as TIFF) and only convert back to jpeg after you have tweaked the photo the way you want it.

[Bill2849]

I would love if the water was calm for a perfect reflection but a small dam lets out there and ruffles it up, so maybe i'll just drop it.

That's your call. I thought the rippled reflection here added a very nice impressionistic effect that I enjoyed.

[monochrome]

It was 112 today, and the desert is brown. Really nice to see some green trees and water....

I'm inspired to head down to the tracks and shoot some trains now - thanks!! (I can hear the 10:25 coal drag pounding up Kirkwood Hill at 10mph every evening as I go to sleep - and when the mass of the train crests the hill and the engineer throttles back the turbos wind down. The soundscape is over when the remote-controlled pusher clatters through at a nearly-silent idle).

But it is 112 degrees here and the ground is like miles of hot kitty litter, so I'll just stay inside and fiddle.