Re: For the photo discussion - an old example (film)

KevinM Wrote
--------------------------------------------------:
> ... An image was considered sharp (enough) if you
> could clearly read the numbers on the locomotive.


True, Kevin -

And one thing that REALLY helped - especially with relatively small apertures, slow films and slow shutters - was catching the train coming at you (or going away, but Scott doesn't always approve of those), rather than across your field of view.  The following was mis-filed in my box of a couple hundred Freedom Train slides, and hadn't seen the light of day for nearly forty years until a few weeks ago.  It was taken on Ektachrome with an RB-67 equipped with a 180mm lens, at a maximum shutter speed of 1/400 of a second, probably at f8, and scanned on a Nikon Coolscan 9000 at 4,000 dpi.  Here's the original scan, cropped to 425x525 pixels for the NGDF, side-by-side with my first edit as posted previously but also shrunk to 425x525 pixels, both at JPEG quality 60:


This is what I consider to be the optimum crop - a rarely-used square - plus some shadow and contrast adjustment (using levels & shadows/highlights/midtone contrast along with the cloud contrast feature of the smart brush) and de-saturation of the too-orange fields.  I was helped with the composition & color correction by a non-railfan neighbor who minored in photography at Weber State College (which is hidden in the trees on the hillside in the right background of the photo):


Of course it doesn't hurt when the fireman recognizes the photographer, and blows the whistle loud and long* ...   And, just to show that every once in a while I do get the focus right, here's a pixel-for-pixel crop of the rear of the 22-car train.  The stop sign behind the RR signal is a good 1/3 mile away, yet almost legible - but the film is just too grainy:


- El Greengo Curmudgeoño de los Locos Viejos y Verdes
aka Der DünkelOlivGrünDampfKesselMantelLiebHaber

* #4449 carried two whistles - one an SP six chime and the other swapped out from time to time as different collectors lent their favorites for a week or two or sometimes just from one display site to the next.  IIRC, Al and/or Andy had arranged levers and whistle chords so that either whistle - or both - could be blown by either the engineer or the fireman, as "necessary" . . .    



Edited 4 time(s). Last edit at 12/17/2015 01:17PM by Russo Loco.