[butangmucat]

So a friend of mine was visiting my city on his way home from college and asked me to take him around the city for trainshooting. No problem, and I decided to try out with B&W for a day.

All photos were shot in RAW and converted using the Silver Efex Pro 2 from Google Nik Collection, I opted the Ilford XP2 for my "film of the day" and tried various color filters.

Comments are greatly welcome as I am usually not a B&W guy.

[Adam]

Great shots! It's hard to critique when there are so many, but for me, the last one is the best overall. The composition and B&W conversion works nicely.

I also like the first and second, and the last, though I think the grain effect and midtone contrast boost is a bit excessive.

[butangmucat]

Great shots! It's hard to critique when there are so many, but for me, the last one is the best overall. The composition and B&W conversion works nicely.

I also like the first and second, and the last, though I think the grain effect and midtone contrast boost is a bit excessive.

So I should probably compress the midtone? The first image was shot backlight and I had to do some HDR tone mapping before the B&W conversion, and it also seems that the Ilford XP2 (film or filter) seems to have a different character compared to films like Kodak TAMX or Ilford's own Delta line.

Some of the original RAW images were already pretty noisy, so I am not sure about what to do, probably leave them as grain?

[rednax]

well, not being an expert either in lokomotives or photo, I get a sence that the hard midtone contrast in some of the pics sort of adds to a kind of nostalgic feeling, or air if you will, in them...(the not so ultra modern highspeed ones) Overall a very nice series of pics!

[Adam]

So I should probably compress the midtone? The first image was shot backlight and I had to do some HDR tone mapping before the B&W conversion, and it also seems that the Ilford XP2 (film or filter) seems to have a different character compared to films like Kodak TAMX or Ilford's own Delta line.

Some of the original RAW images were already pretty noisy, so I am not sure about what to do, probably leave them as grain?

After seeing the color versions I think you did a great job with the B&W conversion. Might be hard to squeeze more detail out of those files, but I suppose you could mess around a bit with noise reduction and contrast.

[DeadJohn]

Good set of photos. I like trains so I'll give a quick comment on all of them. My favorites in order are 1, 8, 2, 6.

#1: I like this because of the station architecture.

#2: The contrast between white train and black background works well. My style would probably lead me to lift the shadows to show more background detail, but your choice is good too.

#3: I don't like this one. I'd like to see more of the train and less of the blurred poles.

#4: Maybe too much contrast; there's a lot of black in this one.

#5: Looks like it was taken with an old pocket instamatic film camera. The softness, grain, and flare are individually bad but they work well together.

#6: I like the composition. The right-edge has distracting vignetting; the far edge of the train fades to black and the building seems to change color.

#7: The blurred head, cell phone reflection, and guard booth neat the lower left corner are distractions.

#8: Another good shot. The station interior drops off too black but that's fine because it's s small portion of the photo.

#9: Similar to #5 with the old look to it. The single passenger waiting adds interest.

[butangmucat]

Good set of photos. I like trains so I'll give a quick comment on all of them. My favorites in order are 1, 8, 2, 6.

#1: I like this because of the station architecture.

#2: The contrast between white train and black background works well. My style would probably lead me to lift the shadows to show more background detail, but your choice is good too.

#3: I don't like this one. I'd like to see more of the train and less of the blurred poles.

#4: Maybe too much contrast; there's a lot of black in this one.

#5: Looks like it was taken with an old pocket instamatic film camera. The softness, grain, and flare are individually bad but they work well together.

#6: I like the composition. The right-edge has distracting vignetting; the far edge of the train fades to black and the building seems to change color.

#7: The blurred head, cell phone reflection, and guard booth neat the lower left corner are distractions.

#8: Another good shot. The station interior drops off too black but that's fine because it's s small portion of the photo.

#9: Similar to #5 with the old look to it. The single passenger waiting adds interest.

Actually I think on #5 and #9 I had simply pushed by gear beyond its envelop. I had my Super-Takumar 1:2/35 (single-coated version) shot wide open and had my Sony a5000 body set to ISO 2000. The original image was noisy, not sharp at all, and had that giant color flare.

---------- Post added 07-21-16 at 08:51 AM ----------

Good set of photos. I like trains so I'll give a quick comment on all of them. My favorites in order are 1, 8, 2, 6.

#1: I like this because of the station architecture.

#2: The contrast between white train and black background works well. My style would probably lead me to lift the shadows to show more background detail, but your choice is good too.

#3: I don't like this one. I'd like to see more of the train and less of the blurred poles.

#4: Maybe too much contrast; there's a lot of black in this one.

#5: Looks like it was taken with an old pocket instamatic film camera. The softness, grain, and flare are individually bad but they work well together.

#6: I like the composition. The right-edge has distracting vignetting; the far edge of the train fades to black and the building seems to change color.

#7: The blurred head, cell phone reflection, and guard booth neat the lower left corner are distractions.

#8: Another good shot. The station interior drops off too black but that's fine because it's s small portion of the photo.

#9: Similar to #5 with the old look to it. The single passenger waiting adds interest.

And for #7 I wanted to capture people waiting for the train to pass and taking photos of the train, so I probably need a lens with a wider FOV?