Steam & Excursion > Night Photography the Old Fashioned Way

On the evening of October 18, several riders of the Sumpter Valley Photo Train gathered at the Sumpter Valley shops at McEwen, OR for a brief night photo session. Lighting consisted of flashbulbs provided by Jay Lentzner, with assistance from Ron Burkhard. Although Link, Steinheimer, and others practiced it for years, this was my first experience with this form of night photography. For this shot, my camera's shutter was open for a bit more than 2 minutes, and 5 or 6 flashbulbs were fired. Thanks to Jay and Ron, we got a nice image.

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Great shot. Thanks Taylor for agreeing to help out on this "add-on" to the weekend event.

Martin

That did turn out nice.

Taylor

Posted from iPhone

Very nice!

Agree! Something right about bulbs versus the "light tower".

Better color and light saturation.

That is a great one. Nice going "rookie".

Question: How do you work the railroad worker with the flash. I assume he is there for just one flash? Any insight would be appreciated as I have never done that. TIA.

I cut my night shot teeth using only available light, albeit that available light was sometimes enhanced by my car's headlights.

Art House

That's a very beautiful shot! I love the
color and the mood. It looks the way a
really good night shot should look, and
really looks like NIGHT< not underexposed
daytiime. Really good work!

Cute little Mikado.

Great shot.

~Ryan

The person in the photo of Sumpter Valley #19 is Taylor Rush (HeislerPower). Perhaps he will tell us if he held that position for the 2+ minutes it took to fire the flashbulbs, as I was occupied with keeping my shutter open and did not notice.

For contrast, I offer another photo of McCloud #25 taken the evening of October 16 on the Oregon Coast Scenic Railroad north of Garibaldi, Oregon with the same lens (Pentax 16-50mm f2.8 on a Pentax K5), but with strobes set up by Peter Lerro. For both photos, I followed suggestions from Jay or Pete for ISO and lens opening settings. The shot of #25 may appear a bit sharper, because I used a cable release to hold the shutter open. Unfortunately, the cable release may still be beside the road north of Garibaldi, because I could not find it for the Sumpter Valley shot and had to use my finger to hold the shutter open. So the camera may have moved slightly during the exposure.

The shot of #25 was a bit more challenging in one respect - there were several relatively bright lights in the background that we had to try to block by placing #25 between them and our cameras.

By the way, the person standing between the tender and the cab in the #25 shot is Martin Hansen (LoggerHogger).

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It looks like I moved a bit. I am not surprised. During the shoot I would get a request from the photographers to adjust the fire or headlight and the minute I started to do what they wanted (in the total dark I might add) they asked me to get back in the gangway. Interesting to say the least.

I should have reminded them that it takes 2 folks to run the engine and there were only the 2 of us (Scott and I) on the engine to run her.

Martin

I think that is the first night reflection shot I have seen. Nice work, both of them.

I think my head moved a bit. I was looking at the pocket watch in my hand, after 3 and a half minutes I began to wonder if maybe all the photographers had died or something.

Taylor

Posted from iPhone

These are great photos - thank you for sharing them.

Where possible, I have had good results in using a long shutter opening in combination with the camera's timer. The downside in using this method is that most cameras will limit you to a 30 second exposure.