Which Camera - For black and white shiny things in the sun

[200bhp]

We convert road going vehicles to run on railway track here in sunny Australia. They're mostly white vehicles with a black chassis, black bumpers and black tyres etc.

Taking photos of them with various iPhone and Android phone models in the bright sun often results in over exposure or photos that look too HDR or too "contrasty". Sadly we never have an opportunity to book a photographer as we get a very small window of opportunity to get on rail at short notice.

After a few years of asking, I've finally been given approval to buy a camera and lens to be used by whoever the engineer is on the day to try and take some reasonable photos.

Requirements are:

• Auto focus
• As many automatic features to allow an engineer (non-artistic type person!) to do a reasonable job
• Some good depth of field (iPhone photos have everything in focus)

A few of us are keen to learn and take it home for practice, so we can up-skill once we have the right equipment.

I know there are a few "what camera" posts on here, but the white and black problem makes this one a bit different, hence a new thread.

Here's a couple of the best photos from the last 8 yearsso you can see the subject matter.

[200bhp]

S1bs said:

200bhp.

What might be useful is to post a few images where the photos were bad, rather than good.

That might give us an idea of what's going wrong currently and then we could suggest how things could be improved.

You could easily spend a few thousand on a shiny new camera and lens, but if it's used in fully automatic mode and photos taken with the sun in the wrong direction by someone who doesn't know better / doesn't care etc etc then your results might only be slightly better than those you currently take with a phone.

Some of those issues cannot be solved - The railway line is fixed, the sun cannot be moved and we don't get a choice of when we get to use the railway for photography (normally early morning or late afternoon).

Late afternoon, maybe an hour before sunset. Poor lighting results in the photos looking a bit "flat"



Mid-morning, slightly overcast day. The clouds/sky are very bright, resulting in the whole photo being over exposed.


Mid-morning, probably the best conditions and location. However, with the side of the truck facing the sun, the front isnt well lit.