Wednesday Feb 22 2006
Making the Most of the Situation on February 21st
Today is our fifth day in a row of overcast weather, and we are supposed to have several more in store before seeing the sun again. I am headed out to Sweetwater after work on Wednesday to spend Thursday and Friday with my father, and I’ll be back on Saturday. I only have a dialup connection at his house, so it may be this weekend before I post any more web logs with photographs.
Yesterday I promised some better examples of making use of low light. There is nothing wrong with perfectly lit roster shots, but I always try to take advantage of the seemingly less than perfect conditions to record those special moments in railroading. A case in point was the last time I went to Sweetwater on December 30, 2005. I was looking at a colorful sunset ahead of me as I got off of I20 just west of Clyde, knowing I had a westbound UP auto rack train close behind me. I stopped at a set of signals on a curve that I already had in mind, and quickly set up the tripod to take a few test shots and make some exposure adjustments based on the histogram. This is where digital really comes in handy!
The approach-lit signal snapped on showing green, and less than a minute later the UP 4205 is coming right at me in the twilight as he nears the curve.
I got the first shot and wheeled around to get the going away shot with the green signal and the sunset. Traveling at 60mph, his power and most of the first car passed the signal with the green aspect reflecting off of the shiny side of the auto rack before it dropped to red in the next instant.
A check of the viewing screen allowed me to travel on to Sweetwater in the darkness content that I had nailed (in my opinion anyway) the photographs I had quickly planned for.
