Railfan Technology > Dome car photography

I'm taking a Toronto to Vancouver round trip on the Canadian this coming weekend, and I was wondering if anybody has any suggestions on taking pictures from the dome car. I'm thinking I should probably use a polarizing filter to cut down on the glare and reflections from the glass, but this is new to me so I'm not really sure. Most often I'll be using a Canon 7D with a 50mm lens if it makes any difference. Any info would be appreciated.

Thanks,
Dwayne

My personal experience with dome car photography hasn't been good. Dirty windows are the first problem, distortion from the bend in the glass or plastic is an issue, and loss of shutter speed due to the window's filter effect can be a problem. I found that taking pictures of the inside of the car, and of the people is a better option, to document the trip. Again, this is just my experience. Good luck and enjoy the trip!

A few suggestions based on past experiences. Try to sit on the side of the car where the light is behind you to avoid glare off the surface of the glass. Hold the lens close to the surface of the glass and focus beyond the glass to minimize the visibility of any dirt or scratches on the surface. The longer the lens the better to achieve this. If you are comfortable with your shutter speeds and f-stops then experiment to find the right combination for your situation and desired results.

---

---

---

The dome car glass on the Canadian is generally kept pretty clean. I don't think you need to worry about filters as much as you need to be sure to have enough memory...there will be plenty of action !

---

I have simply pointed my camera out the dome window and clicked and am reasonably happy with the results. The biggest problem might be focus, with the auto focus wanting to focus on something in the glass. One thing that helps is the auto white balance, which automatically adjusts for the tint in the glass. Here are a few of the pix I got.

JBWX



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 07/30/17 19:40 by jbwest.

---

---

---

Very nice shot of shooting from Dome car. Thanks for sharing.

Stanley Jackowski
Valrico, FL

Thanks for the advice. If I can get results even half as good as those posted by Ken & JB I'll be a happy camper. Those are excellent shots.

Dwayne

john and ken lets see some travelouges of these dome adventures.

ken i chased that trip, any sunset pics from idaho, or were you dining?

have a great trip grumpy!

Here is the Idaho sunset on July 5th 2012 you asked about! I had to pass on the dinner bell to be in position for this photo from the Walter Dean. Later I fixed my own dinner in the dining car kitchen and it was still excellent.

I think we all will want to see your dome shots after the trip!

---

KEN what a trip! go eat your dinner



https://www.trainorders.com/discussion/read.php?4,2885026

https://www.trainorders.com/discussion/read.php?1,3255691,3255691#3255691

---

MrGrumpy Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Most often
> I'll be using a Canon 7D with a 50mm lens if it
> makes any difference. Any info would be
> appreciated.

I used to aspire to learn filters .. but Adobe Lightroom is a better way. See below.

Some advice I received years ago, set the White Balance to a fixed setting, like Sun. This way, if it's off for a group of pictures, the same adjustment to fix one pic then applied to the group should get you in the ball park in correcting them in "post", or after event editing.

I'd recommend shooting in RAW or RAW + JPG if you desire uploadable files close to real time. RAW images have more latitude in post.

To manage my Canon Medium RAW .CR2's, I use Adobe Lightroom. It's a great bunch-of-images, tool. It allows multi-stop adjustments, brightness adjustments, cropping, spot removal. Some mods can then be applied to a user-choosable. CR2's can be exported, one or hundreds, to a range of desired formats and settings. These can be saved as presets. The edits are non-destructive ... a mouse click can bring the image to any point in the retouching History, including "as uploaded".


Enjoy your trip! I look forward to seeing your pictures.

* JB *

And . . if you haven't noticed . . . get there early to gain possession of the front/rear window seat!

RailNet802, owevaaaah

kk5ol Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> And . . if you haven't noticed . . . get there
> early to gain possession of the front/rear window
> seat!
>
> RailNet802, owevaaaah

One of the advantages of riding the Canadian in the winter is there is not much competition for that front seat in the dome.

JBWX

For space reasons I used to shoot just JPEG, but earlier this summer I found a great deal on a 5TB Seagate external drive - so I bought myself two. Now that space is not an issue I've switched back to RAW. I use either Photoshop 5.5 or Lightroom 4.4, depending on what I want to do. If I'm editing something I know I'll never want to change, such as rotating a slightly crooked picture, then I use Photoshop. If it's something where I want to retain the original, then it's Lightroom.

As for getting a good dome seat - I'll be up bright & early, first in line.

Cheers,
Dwayne