Railfan and the digital camera.

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Railfan and the digital camera.

• The easy way to take good railway pictures.

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Enjoy !

• Railfanning and the associated photography is
  meant to be fun.
• Taking pictures is one of the most potent forms
  of expression that the railfans have.
• We capture a slice of time an event that may
  never occur again.
• Instead of enjoying the process, are we getting
  caught up with the Aperture, F stops, ASA
  setting, Focus and other technical bits ?

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Do you Aim and Shoot ?

• While all the terms mentioned before are
  important, but do you have to know all before
  taking a single good picture ?
• You may have a simple aim and shoot camera so
  can you take good pictures ?
• Having a good camera is only a part of the story
  !

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The bad news first,

• As a railfan photographer you have very few
  controls on your subject.
• Light may be wrong,
• Time may be wrong,
• The trains that take you to and back to that
  special place may be at the wrong time,
• Vantage point may not be available,
• RPF and other unsympathetic people may be around
  you.

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More bad news.

• Your camera may be slow.
• Slow from off to on,
• Slow from wide to telephoto and vice-versa.
• Slow from shot to shot,
• Slow for the flash to charge,
• In any case, flash cannot always be used as it
  may attract the attention.

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Taking good pictures -

• As our parents wanted us to STUDY !
• It is all about good composition.
• It is about relationship of shapes, lines,
  colours and shades.
• Study the composition with a lazy eye.
• Let this lazy eye snap the objects that you want
  to show and not the unwanted bits.
• Be aware of what you like about a picture.
• Be aware of what you want to see in a picture.

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Study !

• Look at as many pictures as possible.
• Look at trains pics an say sites such as
  www.railpictures.net etc.
• All the pictures on these sites have been
  filtered by a strict process, so they meet a
  technical standard.
• Again analyze what you like about a certain
  picture.
• I like Shankys pic of the WDG 3A at Hitec City gt

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Be prepared - Equipment

• Know your camera, the controls and the response
  time.
• Be prepared adequate batteries, spare
  batteries.
• Large memory card the largest you can afford.
  Make sure that the card is empty before you come
  for a railfanning session.
• A good camera bag that allows you to flick the
  camera out from storage without fumbling.

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Be prepared Yourself

• Adequate rest. One tends to lose enthusiasm when
  tired.
• Good shoes, clothes, sun protection.
• Food and water.
• A knowledge of the area you may have to ask
  around as Ashish says He who has a mouth
  would find Rome !
• A knowledge of the timetables.
• Be prepared to take the EFFORTS more than the
  RISKS.

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Be prepared in your mind

• Continuously visualize the scene against the
  changing background.
• Even if you are not with a camera, keep an open
  eye (and mind) about interesting locations to
  shoot railways against train your mind to be
  framing images all the time.
• Be aware of the background in a picture it may
  be good or it may be bad !

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Be prepared Camera tips

• Know your cameras response against the trains
  speed anticipate how many pictures would be
  possible before the train leaves the frame.
• Choose an interesting place off the track be
  ready for that special angle when the train goes
  past there would be just one of these
  opportunities!
• Ensure that the date stamp in the camera is OFF.
• Take as many pictures as possible and shoot
  continuously!
• Shoot in the maximum possible size. This is very
  important.
• Do not shoot in the BW or Sepia mode those
  effects can be added later. You may need the
  colour image.

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Be prepared Camera Tips

• The best pictures of trains are from the ground
  not door or window shots. Be prepared to go out
  there !
• Try to capture the train against an interesting
  background a wall, flowers, trees, cutting,
  mountain, water.
• Do not shoot only the zoom, use wide also. Keep
  in mind the time taken for a camera to shift from
  zoom to wide.
• Pay attention to the catenary and signal posts !
• Avoid shooting ones own shadow.

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Treating the camera

• Keep the camera steady while clicking.
• Keep the camera steady till the shutter has
  re-closed.
• Use the flash if required to get rid of shadows
  in the picture this may be needed in the bright
  sun also.
• Practice taking night shots without flash by
  keeping the camera on a surface.
• Use a small timer to fire the shutter in the
  night shots. This timer (2 seconds) overcomes
  the shake caused by the operation of the shutter
  button.
• You may not be able to use the flash for the
  macro shots the excess light would washout
  finer details.

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Anticipate/Participate

• Anticipate the events - at what point will the
  driver notch up, or switch on the headlamp or
  when will the four flags, Crew, Under guard,
  Guard and SM, show ?
• Build a series of pictures write a story
  linking these pictures in your mind.
• You could take notes using the camera.
• Participate in the passage of the train wave at
  the crew to thank them for that special pose.
  Wave at the children in the train too !

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Light source

• Early morning and late evening light is the best
  for shooting pictures.
• Be aware of where the light is coming from
  maybe take advantage of the light and shadow by
  shooting the train as it comes into light.
• Example of an against sun, morning shot, with
  train coming into a light patch. -gt

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Cropping

• As mentioned before shoot as many images as
  possible in the largest size.
• The large image then can be cropped to make
  more sense of the composition.
• The large image size would allow deletion of the
  irrelevant bits in the picture, thus improving
  the focus on the primary objects.
• Cropping would also improve the composition of
  the picture the next image is the uncropped
  version of a picture followed by the cropped
  version.

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Resample

• After Cropping Resample the image to a
  smaller size keeping the Horizontal dimension
  to 1024 pixels or the Vertical dimension to 768
  pixels.
• This would reduce the size of the file.

768
1024
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Unsharpen

• This technique is used to actually sharpen the
  picture.
• The JPG image tends to blur after every
  manipulation unsharpening brings out the
  edges, giving that special finish to the picture.
  
• The next picture is the original image followed
  by the unsharpened image notice the increase
  in detail in the second pic.

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Another example of Cropping

• The next picture is the uncropped image opened in
  Paint Shop Pro.
• Next is a screenshot showing the process of
  cropping.
• Next is the cropped image itself.
• Last is the cropped unsharpened image.

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Post shooting

• See all the pictures in a slide show on a large
  monitor.
• Expect only 10 or your pictures to be good.
• Identify the pictures that should be displayed
  Every good picture does not have to be uploaded.
• Be very disciplined in the amount of pictures to
  be uploaded.
• Process the pictures crop, resample, unsharpen.
• Write the description with the fullest details.

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Software to be used

• With a digital camera, knowledge of image editing
  software is mandatory.
• Learn Photoshop. If that is not possible use a
  lighter freeware like PaintShop Pro 4 or Ifran
  View etc.
• Aim to learn advanced techniques for removal of
  unwanted objects and for correcting the levels.

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Removal of unwanted objects

• The following two images are examples of an
  unwanted objects.
• The second image is kindly provided by Prakash
  Tendulkar.

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Correcting levels

• The following two images are examples of
  improving an image that is too light.
• The second image has been tweaked in Photoshop to
  give some level of balance.

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Thank You for your patience !