My turn with the choo choo trains

zombiemann · Sep 1, 2012

Heh, it seems like a theme lately. Maybe it's just a popular target for HDR, but I sure seem to be seeing a lot of trains. This afternoon, I spotted a break in the otherwise craptastic weather and jumped at what is probably going to be my only chance to take the camera out this weekend. We headed to the Central Illinois Train Museum in Monticello Illinois. *The forum is giving me fits trying to upload the pics so I'm going to reply with a few more.

Sleeper car: I tried to shoot at about eye level if you were sitting in one of the chairs

A newer Engine

*fixed engine:

zombiemann · Sep 1, 2012

They (of course) offer train rides. I think you can elect to ride in this car if weather permits

Parker219 · Sep 1, 2012

Pretty cool. #1 does nothing for me emotionally, but technically speaking its okay, minus the purple light. #2 is okay for me, the sky looks a little weird, maybe some people will like it though. I like the angle on #2 though, you get a lot of the train, which is cool. I personally like picture 3 the best, I really like how the wood looks there. If I was going to be picky, I would say the powerlines take away from the photo a little.
A lot better than most of the trains we have seen around here lately!
Just my 2 cents.

jamesbjenkins · Sep 1, 2012

(#1) Holy ghosting, Batman!

You know you can fix that, right?

zombiemann · Sep 1, 2012

I'm not big on the purple light but it's "natural" not an artifact of processing. The windows are tinted.

I struggled with the clouds on 2. They were moving extremely fast. We're getting some nasty weather this weekend, supposedly a side effect of the hurricane in the gulf. We've had tornado watches yesterday and today. Quite frankly I was happy to have blue sky to shoot against at all lol. I may go back and try and clean the sky up a bit though.

I would agree 100% about the power lines if they were just stray lines with no real "purpose" (like from a pole to a building) but in this case, I left them because of the perspective of the shot, and the lines/poles being so close to the track. I honestly felt like taking them out would remove too much reality from the image.

P.S. One of these images had a screaming toddler removed.... can you tell me which one?

zombiemann · Sep 1, 2012

jamesbjenkins said:
(#1) Holy ghosting, Batman!

You know you can fix that, right?

Can you be a little more specific? Or maybe I am looking at the wrong #1. I know there is some issue with 2, but I'm playing hell trying to fix it.

tirediron · Sep 1, 2012

Love #2, but that's the damn-all strangest consist I've ever seen!

FanBoy · Sep 1, 2012

The foreground of picture one makes me feel a bit claustrophobic but I think you captured the warm mood.

The exposure of the trains looks great. The surface paint and wear is evident.

How many bracketed exposures did you take for the outdoor shots?

FanBoy · Sep 1, 2012

zombiemann said:
jamesbjenkins said:

(#1) Holy ghosting, Batman!

You know you can fix that, right?

Click to expand...

Can you be a little more specific? Or maybe I am looking at the wrong #1. I know there is some issue with 2, but I'm playing hell trying to fix it.

I think he was referring to the brown pillow/curtain on the right side of the photo. I'm not sure what is, but it's a bit dark.

zombiemann · Sep 1, 2012

FanBoy said:
The foreground of picture one makes me feel a bit claustrophobic but I think you captured the warm mood.

The exposure of the trains looks great. The surface paint and wear is evident.

How many bracketed exposures did you take for the outdoor shots?

10 and 12 respectively. I set Magic Lantern on my T2i to autodetect. I'm going to try redoing the engine with fewer exposures to see if that helps the clouds.

FanBoy · Sep 1, 2012

zombiemann said:
FanBoy said:

The foreground of picture one makes me feel a bit claustrophobic but I think you captured the warm mood.

The exposure of the trains looks great. The surface paint and wear is evident.

How many bracketed exposures did you take for the outdoor shots?

Click to expand...

10 and 12 respectively. I set Magic Lantern on my T2i to autodetect. I'm going to try redoing the engine with fewer exposures to see if that helps the clouds.

That's what I thought. Was the contrast range that high that you think you needed that many bracketed photos?

zombiemann · Sep 1, 2012

I personally don't manually shoot more than about 9ish. These shots were taken in sort of "auto pilot" mode. I set everything I wanted for my neutral image and Magic Lantern did the rest, taking exposures until I had everything covered as far as the in camera metering was concerned. I had tried it before but ran into other complications. I decided to give it another shot today. Obviously it tends to go a little overboard lol.