Experiment - does it appeal to anyone?
Discussion
. Is that a road bridge over the tracks?Thanks guys.
Yep u-t-d, it is a road and happily a truck, by the looks of it, passed over during the exposure. The bridge has recently been strengthened and both side are not damn great concrete structures, presumably to prevent any possibility of a vehicle crashing onto the tracks below. Sadly the effect of that is to obscure the view on a junction just to the right side of the photo. Not good considering it is a main road with a 60mph limit. Many accidents on it though so they have beem talking about uprating it for years. My guess is it will get a 40 limit (for about 10 miles!), then be upgraded to a dual carriageway but the limit left at 40. Ho Hum.
Anyway the relevance of that is that cars cannot be seen behind the concrete barriers so the only lights available for the shot seem to be those of trucks and coaches. However the new concrete has been lit to some extent by the passing express train - so a strange combination all in all.
I was aiming for something slightly lighter over all but the results seem darker than they looked on camera. The long exposure means that post processing adjustments tend to exaggerate the noise. The image is straight from the camera other than a little cropping and slight straightening where the verticals seen in the camera grid do not seem so vertical once on screen.
Maybe I should re-shoot a little earlier in the evening - it was about right when I got there but this is about an hour later. Or wait a couple of weeks and re-shoot at the same time!
Or perhaps just go to the pub instead ...
Yep u-t-d, it is a road and happily a truck, by the looks of it, passed over during the exposure. The bridge has recently been strengthened and both side are not damn great concrete structures, presumably to prevent any possibility of a vehicle crashing onto the tracks below. Sadly the effect of that is to obscure the view on a junction just to the right side of the photo. Not good considering it is a main road with a 60mph limit. Many accidents on it though so they have beem talking about uprating it for years. My guess is it will get a 40 limit (for about 10 miles!), then be upgraded to a dual carriageway but the limit left at 40. Ho Hum.
Anyway the relevance of that is that cars cannot be seen behind the concrete barriers so the only lights available for the shot seem to be those of trucks and coaches. However the new concrete has been lit to some extent by the passing express train - so a strange combination all in all.
I was aiming for something slightly lighter over all but the results seem darker than they looked on camera. The long exposure means that post processing adjustments tend to exaggerate the noise. The image is straight from the camera other than a little cropping and slight straightening where the verticals seen in the camera grid do not seem so vertical once on screen.
Maybe I should re-shoot a little earlier in the evening - it was about right when I got there but this is about an hour later. Or wait a couple of weeks and re-shoot at the same time!
Or perhaps just go to the pub instead ...
Wow. Thanks everyone.
I think I'll plan for another outing then and see if I can get the result I was really looking for.
Hi-res version of the file is not problem (if I remembered to save it ... after cropping. If not I will re-do it.)
If I provide something that covers something like 1920 by 1200 pixels (or whatever the nearest proportion is) will that be OK for those who might need to downsize? I can make different sizes if necessary.
Send me an email through my profile with a contact mail address and preferred screen size and I will ship something as soon as I can.
I think I'll plan for another outing then and see if I can get the result I was really looking for.
Hi-res version of the file is not problem (if I remembered to save it ... after cropping. If not I will re-do it.)
If I provide something that covers something like 1920 by 1200 pixels (or whatever the nearest proportion is) will that be OK for those who might need to downsize? I can make different sizes if necessary.
Send me an email through my profile with a contact mail address and preferred screen size and I will ship something as soon as I can.
Were you worried about getting some shadow detail in the trees ? If so then in a situation like this I'd probably take two exposures at different times on the same evening then cut out the trees and paste them in making adjustments to levels at appropriate. But as other people have said, this image would make a good desktop wallpaper as it is.
te51cle said:
Were you worried about getting some shadow detail in the trees ? If so then in a situation like this I'd probably take two exposures at different times on the same evening then cut out the trees and paste them in making adjustments to levels at appropriate. But as other people have said, this image would make a good desktop wallpaper as it is.
I think I can get the shadow detail and some colour by going to a 15 second exposure (this one was 10 secs) although that would have been easier slightly earlier in the evening. It was a pain waiting around for a train to appear! Very underutilised I felt.
But the difficulty then is that the speed and length of the train start to affect the resulting image. Knowing what the train is might help ot course. That shot was an Intercity express travelling at speed. The camera (Canon Ixus Wireless) was on a mini tripod positioned on the bridge parapet. I used a 2 sec delayed timer to try to avoid movement activating the shutter.
With slower trains or the 2 carriage cross country stuff the results are less predictable. With goods trains there is not much to see!
Planes crossing the sky are fun though ...
I suspect that 10 secs, with an express train, slightly earlier in the evening (due to absence of other light sources when facing in the direction of this shot) might be quite dramatic. A colder night would have been good as well (though not from a personal point of view) because the power station would have been producing more steam from the cooling towers.
Right, I'll check the train timetables and have another go in a day or so ...
barreti said:
If I'm not mistaken that's right in my back yard at Ratcliffe On Soar isn't it Long-Q.
Nice picture and great imagination to even think of taking a picture from there.
It is indeed. There seem to be quite a number of PHer's nearby.
It's kind of you to suggest imagination but I 'discovered' the bridge by accident when I was trying to take some shots of R-o-S power station a while ago. There was this sort of whooshing and rattling noise as I was about to pack up and realised how close I was to the rail line.
The shot was taken from the bridge just off the A453 at the turn heading down towards the back end of Kegworth. Actually my intention was to to get a shot facing away from the power station but the results, from the trains around on the night, were not quite what I had hoped for so I tried the other side of the road ...
I am thinking about making use of my large flashgun during the timed exposure but suspect people might wonder what is going on and find myself subject to the attention of the Transport Police.
Using flash to light up a truck on the road bridge would be fun as well but I suspect I would have to disguise the thing as a Gatso ...
That road has enough accidents as it is so perhaps sudden flashes might be more than a little dangerous!
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