Opinions on this shot

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legostudios34
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Opinions on this shot

Unread post by legostudios34 »

ImageNS 6920 Green by lego-studios34, on Flickr

So I was wondering what you guys think about this shot. I had shot the Veterans engine a couple days before this and got good shots, but sine it was back in the area I figured I might as well shoot it but try a pan since it was almost dark. I'm not really looking for criticism about the lighting, more on the actual train. The cab is the only thing that is sharp, nothing else it, and I have received mixed opinions on it.

Any (constructive) criticism is welcome and appreciated.
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Y@
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Re: Opinions on this shot

Unread post by Y@ »

It's a fairly good attempt. Unfortunately, only the front of the 6920 is frozen. Ideally, the entire 6920 would be in focus while the rest of the frame was blurred. Could use a little shadows and highlights work as well, but overall not a bad attempt.
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Re: Opinions on this shot

Unread post by bdconrail29 »

Agreed with Y@. You want to do a panning shot here. Keep the units in focus, sharp, with foreground and background blur. You don't want any of the units blurry.
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Re: Opinions on this shot

Unread post by MagnumForce »

ImageWabash Southern Pan by Brent Kneebush, on Flickr

Pretty much the same conditions you were working with.

1/60 Shutter Speed hand held pan while I was standing on the ground, were you in a vehicle pacing?

EDIT: WHOA! Just checked your exif data, 1/20 is way too slow and an Fstop of 16 is crazy crazy fast. You should be up around 5 with a shutter speed of around 1/60 to pull something like this off. In those lighting conditions.

Not trying to be a turd but do you understand the correlation between shutter speed and F stop and what those terms mean? We are here to help if you don't!
Last edited by MagnumForce on Sun Jul 06, 2014 12:04 am, edited 1 time in total.

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jkh2cpu
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Re: Opinions on this shot

Unread post by jkh2cpu »

Looks like a fine pan shot to me... and that Nikon is doing OK. I downloaded the full size shot from flickr, and it looks OK to me... I'd be happy with it.

Don't let the grumpy guys get you down.

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Re: Opinions on this shot

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No one is being grumpy, he asked for honest criticism, we know him pretty well.

He doesn't want dancing around things, he wants an honest critique so he can learn from things.

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Re: Opinions on this shot

Unread post by bdconrail29 »

I don't see anything wrong at all with f/16 that would actually ruin a panning shot. A panning shot to be successful is dependent solely on shutter speed and how well you pan along with the train. I would agree though, that you need to raise the shutter speed to 1/60s or even 1/80s. This might get your f-stop down to f/8 which will help eliminate diffraction effects. On a crop-sensor camera you reach the diffraction limit much sooner because of the smaller image circle as well as the smaller pixels. Just keep practicing.

Pan shots are best done in M mode, where you can set the shutter speed to 1/80s and aperture to f/8, and then just see what ISO does. If ISO is at 100 and you are still way overexposed, then go to f/9, f/10, etc. I've never run into a case where I needed to go beyond that, so you should be okay. It is imperative that your shutter speed be in a range such that it is not too slow that parts away from your AF focus point aren't blurry and not too fast such that you get no motion blur in front or back. Like Brent says, for some reason 1/60s to 1/80s seems to be the "sweet spot."
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Re: Opinions on this shot

Unread post by MagnumForce »

He said it was after sunset which is where F16 comes in. I would not be that small after dark unless I was doing a long exposure. Was it really dark before you edited it, Baxter?

Now in full daylight where you would be shooting f8 all day f16 would probably be about where you'd want to be at 1/60.

I usually am pretty old school and shoot at iso 100 nearly exclusively though so what do I know.

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Re: Opinions on this shot

Unread post by legostudios34 »

MagnumForce wrote:
Not trying to be a turd but do you understand the correlation between shutter speed and F stop and what those terms mean? We are here to help if you don't!
Yes, I do. A faster shutter speed means a wider aperture (lower number) at the same ISO, slower shutter speed means a smaller aperture if ISO stays the same, and so on.
MagnumForce wrote:were you in a vehicle pacing?
Nope, standing on the ground. One of the things that might have contributed to the way this shot came out is the fact that the tracks are on a fairly tight curve.
MagnumForce wrote:Just checked your exif data, 1/20 is way too slow and an Fstop of 16 is crazy crazy fast. You should be up around 5 with a shutter speed of around 1/60 to pull something like this off. In those lighting conditions.
I shot at 1/20 shutter speed, F16 is what the camera chose, and ISO 400 like I normally shoot at. The reason I used 1/20 is that is what a friend (not here) recommended a while back and so that's what I've been shooting pan shots with. I will try 1/60 in the future, however. I probably wouldnt have went for a pan but it was too dark for me to maintain a shutter speed of 1/500
MagnumForce wrote:No one is being grumpy, he asked for honest criticism, we know him pretty well.

He doesn't want dancing around things, he wants an honest critique so he can learn from things.
Exactly.
bdconrail29 wrote:how well you pan along with the train.
When I do a pan I manually set the AF point in the viewfinder to where the cab will be when I take the picture. It gives me a reference that I can easily follow along with. What do you guys do?
MagnumForce wrote:Was it really dark before you edited it, Baxter?
Not really dark, but I did brighten it up a couple stops in Photoshop.


Thanks for all the help guys. I think I've determined the three problems.

1. Shutter speed was too slow.
2. Using Shutter-Priority mode instead of Manual mode and Auto ISO
3. The tracks are on a slight curve, and with a pan at a slow shutter speed like I shot at, the closet part to the camera is what tends to be in focus.

ImageNS 6920 Pan Seney by lego-studios34, on Flickr

Just for kicks, heres a pan I did when I caught it in daylight. The sun was almost directly overhead and slightly behind the train, so I figured a pan would be slightly better than what I would have got otherwise. I shot that one at 1/20 and F29, ISO 100, but the tracks were straight and so it was all about the same distance from the camera.

ImageNS 6920 Sugar Valley Telephoto by lego-studios34, on Flickr

And theres a good shot from my chase of it.

Thanks for all the help guys.
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jkh2cpu
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Re: Opinions on this shot

Unread post by jkh2cpu »

Don't wanna start flames... but it's probably better to stay positive.

The idea of 'you *do* know the relationship between shutter speed and f-stop' should be more than pitched.

So...

Back in the day (of color film circa 1965) I ran into the problem of reciprocity failure, with reciprocity being the relationship between shutter speed and f-stop. It's the reciprocity that were interested in, not the failure; you can google for that and thank your lucky stars that you're digital these days.

Our cameras are marked in f-stops and shutter speeds, and these speeds have curious increments... 1 sec, 1/2, sec, 1/4 sec, 1/8, sec, and so on. Get it? The one after 1/8 is 1/16, and then 1/32. F stops are the same, but commonly start at 2.0 or so, depending on the lens... So for an 2.0f lens... 2.0, 4.0, 5.6, 8, 11, 16.

Your nikon camera can be set up to increment (or decrement) in 2 or three clicks per f-stop or shutter speed. As an experiment, drag out your camera, set the exposure mode to aperture, and the aperture setting (f-stop) to f8. Notice your shutter speed. Increase your f-stop a full stop (f-11) and your shutter speed will be cut in half. Now go back to f8 and then decrease to f5.6. Your shutter speed will be doubled.

That's it. The relationship between shutter speed and aperture.

So you shot at f16, which would be good for sharpness, and at 1/20 of a sec, which is difficult for sharpness ;-) (Can't have it all, can we.) 1/40 of a sec would be f11, and 1/60 would be between f11 and f8, but closer to f11. If it were me, I'd set the camera exposure mode on M (for manual) get a light reading at a specific shutter speed (1/60 was recommended, and it sounds good), adjust the f-stop to get the exposure 'zeroed,' snap a test shot, examine the monitor and histogram, and fine tune the f-stop. When the train shows up, snap away!

HTH.

John.

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Re: Opinions on this shot

Unread post by bdconrail29 »

I have a Canon camera and I don't know what it's called on Nikon, but I use AI Servo tracking on the lead unit, lock on, and pan along and fire short burst shots. You can do zone AF because your f-stop will be stopped down enough that everything on the train will be in focus anyways. The point is, is that you need to be moving your camera panning in parallel with the unit; shutter speed isn't too fast or too slow. 1/500s will likely freeze the foreground, rendering the panning shot more similar to a static shot.

I don't know how you did yours, but that's how I do panning shots. I admit that I'm not as familiar with doing it for railfanning as I am sports, but the principles would have to be very similar.

Auto ISO is very handy. Metering in today's cameras is good enough that there's no reason you can't set your shutter speed and aperture ahead of time, and leave auto ISO to ON and I believe with Nikon, you can even do exposure compensation in auto ISO. Just make sure that even at ISO 100 you are not way overexposed. If you have the feature, use it. In fact, ALL of my sports shooting is done in M mode with auto ISO, exposure compensation set to +2/3 with center-weighted average metering.

Sorry I'm getting sidetracked here but I'm just trying to help you get the best shot you can.
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Re: Opinions on this shot

Unread post by jkh2cpu »

Auto ISO will obviate the manual setting of aperture and shutter speed. Fix all of them ahead of time. Another thing from back in the day: the lighting is not going to change in a few minutes. The appearance of a bright headlight will skew your settings to your disappointment.

Sorry.

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Re: Opinions on this shot

Unread post by bdconrail29 »

jkh2cpu wrote:Auto ISO will obviate the manual setting of aperture and shutter speed. Fix all of them ahead of time. Another thing from back in the day: the lighting is not going to change in a few minutes. The appearance of a bright headlight will skew your settings to your disappointment.

Sorry.

John.
Not if you set a minimum ISO it will not. I don't know about Nikon, but with my Canon camera I can set a minimum ISO value in auto ISO, with +2/3 EC. Works brilliantly. Maybe that doesn't work for YOU, but it certainly works for me and all of my exposures are basically exactly the same.

If you want to continue living "back in the day" go for it. It's all good. I knew we were going to get into this "well I shot back in the film days" elitist garbage.
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Re: Opinions on this shot

Unread post by jkh2cpu »

The more things change, the more they stay the same.

In the 'good old days,' a photographer had to really understand the relationship between aperture, shutter speed, and ISO. In the much happier days of digi cameras, if one is going to shot in a manual exposure mode, the ISO needs to stay the same. Vary one, and one of the others also needs to be varied to adjust for the change.

That's not elitist, just a fact.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reciprocit ... ography%29

Forget the math, but a person should be able to get the drift. I'd never go back to film.

One of our rules of thumb was set the shutter speed to match the ISO, and then f16 on a sunny day, and maybe f8 for cloudy days. If one was lucky or flush enough, a light meter was also available.

John.

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Re: Opinions on this shot

Unread post by legostudios34 »

Took some of your advice tonight and went for another pan shot since the only shot available was backlit. How did it come out?

ImageNS 8837 Austell by lego-studios34, on Flickr
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Re: Opinions on this shot

Unread post by Ypsi »

personally my eye is really drawn to the fence right front and center. I like the idea, but maybe step right up and shoot over the fence next time? I am not sure what else is in that area or whatever. I do really like that you still did something rather then nothing even though the conditions for photos may have not been perfect :)
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Re: Opinions on this shot

Unread post by J T »

bdconrail29 wrote:
jkh2cpu wrote:Auto ISO will obviate the manual setting of aperture and shutter speed. Fix all of them ahead of time. Another thing from back in the day: the lighting is not going to change in a few minutes. The appearance of a bright headlight will skew your settings to your disappointment.

Sorry.

John.
Not if you set a minimum ISO it will not. I don't know about Nikon, but with my Canon camera I can set a minimum ISO value in auto ISO, with +2/3 EC. Works brilliantly. Maybe that doesn't work for YOU, but it certainly works for me and all of my exposures are basically exactly the same.

If you want to continue living "back in the day" go for it. It's all good. I knew we were going to get into this "well I shot back in the film days" elitist garbage.
I"ve only been shooting for about 8 years now with digital and I've never used auto ISO. I don't even know what it's for. :lol: What's the point?
jkh2cpu wrote:The more things change, the more they stay the same.

In the 'good old days,' a photographer had to really understand the relationship between aperture, shutter speed, and ISO. In the much happier days of digi cameras, if one is going to shot in a manual exposure mode, the ISO needs to stay the same. Vary one, and one of the others also needs to be varied to adjust for the change.

That's not elitist, just a fact.
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