Help - quick, advice!

[Tuna]

At 6am this morning, against a stunningly bright moon, the Cathedral Express steam train came hammering through sparkling frosty countryside.

It would have made a beautiful photograph, except (a) I wasn't aware it was coming through and (b) I was comfortably asleep in my bed.

At 10pm, it's apparently coming back again. There's a reasonable chances conditions will be good for a photograph. However, I'm not sure I stand a chance of capturing it with my ageing 350d. Any suggestions for how to photograph a very large fast moving object lit only by moonlight?

[davepoth]

Widest possible zoom, aperture wide open, ISO as high as you dare, and that should help you to minimise exposure time.

Your best bet is to go to the national rail website, grab the departure schedule for the station closest, and take a few shots of the trains beforehand to get an idea as to what you need to do.

[markmullen]

davepoth said:

Widest possible zoom, aperture wide open, ISO as high as you dare, and that should help you to minimise exposure time.

This but I would go for as high an ISO as possible, it is better to have a sharp but noisy photograph that can be run through Noise Ninja or similar than a less grainy shot that is blurred by too slow a shutter speed.

Alternatively a slower shutter speed and pan with the train but this depends on how good your panning technique is already and if you only have one shot at it tonight is probably not the best night to be learning.

Finally if you have a flash (an external rather than the inbuilt) then a flash with a longer shutter speed (slow sync flash) and a pan will blur out the background but light the train.

[Simpo Two]

markmullen said:

This but I would go for as high an ISO as possible, it is better to have a sharp but noisy photograph that can be run through Noise Ninja or similar than a less grainy shot that is blurred by too slow a shutter speed.

Alternatively a slower shutter speed and pan with the train but this depends on how good your panning technique is already and if you only have one shot at it tonight is probably not the best night to be learning.

I think you'd have to pan anyway; you'll never get a high enough shutter speed to freeze a fast train in moonlight.

markmullen said:

Finally if you have a flash (an external rather than the inbuilt) then a flash with a longer shutter speed (slow sync flash) and a pan will blur out the background but light the train.

Practice on another train first

The simplest way with the highest chance of getting a useable photo is probably to use (external) flash in normal mode, pan and fire when the composition is right. So just like doing it in the day, but with flash.


(Also best to shoot RAW as you have more scope to hammer a poor result into shape)

[14-7]

Come on it's 2234!!!

Where are the photos?

[Tuna]

Bah... wash out. No idea where that train went.

Though it's interesting to note that you can stand in a field in the middle of nowhere in the pitch black for approximately two minutes before a policeman comes along and asks you what you're doing.

[14-7]

[DIW35]

Tuna said:

Bah... wash out. No idea where that train went.

Though it's interesting to note that you can stand in a field in the middle of nowhere in the pitch black for approximately two minutes before a policeman comes along and asks you what you're doing.

That may have something to do with the large amount of cable thefts the rail industry is suffering, and standing in a field close to the railway line, in the dark, was probably enough to arouse someone's suspicions.