If you're not completely tired of looking at N&W 475 by now, I finally got a few of my slides scanned... these are from the John Craft charter on 10.22.04

http://www.steamsafari.com/475/index.htm

Enjoy!

Eric, Explain to me how an old Virginia boy could get tired of looking at pictures of N&W steam.................................................

Eric,

Simply awesome pics. That first one just says it all.

Congrats.

I was playing Tom Garver to Nils Huxtable's O. Winston Link for that first one. Nils spotted the location; I just tagged along, helped him arrange the picnic bench a little, and then pressed the shutter when the train came. When in doubt, tag along with a master...

Erik, having had the pleasure of accompanying Nils on a couple of photo specials, all I can say is "Nils Knows." Following him around produced some of the best railfan shots I have ever taken.

Very nice. Although why you'd waste time taking pictures of a goat is beyond me . . . HEY! where are the little smily things? HUME! SMILIES - STAT!

;)


AJC

Probably because there was never a train around when the sun was out.... :-)

The pictures are just amazing. The color in them is just awesome. They almost look like digital pictures. I was wondering if you would be willing to let all of us know what type of film you used to capture such great images and maybe, if any, which program you use to "touch them up". If you don't thats even better. I'm interested in photography and have been trying many different types of films and have yet to get colors like those.
Greg U.

Thanks for the kind words, Greg. I'm a little embarassed--a lot of the guys on that trip are MUCH better photographers than I'll ever be. But I'm grateful for your nice words.

Everything was shot on Fuji Provia 100F slide film in a 30-year old Olympus OM-1 35mm manual SLR. The Provia definately accounts for a lot of the overall purple cast vs. Kodachrome's harder blue.

I scanned the slides on an HP Photosmart slide scanner as TIFFs, then worked with the TIFFs in Photoshop 6. I was in a hurry and tired last night, so I didn't spend much time post-processing them. I just ran auto-levels to correct the histogram, and then played manually with the brightness and contrast--I took the sunset shots in particular down at least one stop from what I actually exposed them at. If I had more time I probably would have played with the R G and B channels one by one.

Then resize to 600 pixels wide, switch to LAB colors, select the Lightness channel, and apply Unsharp Mask as needed. Switch back to RGB and save as JPEG.

Before I went through all the posts, I was thinking Mr. Link would smile his approval of the first one.

Now just to hope my slides came out that good--especially on the farmyard shot. I know the video looks great. Looks like you got the shutter clicked just in time. I already see the beginning of the picnic bench rollover. I just wished more than three of us could have experienced that shot. It was easily one of the best shots from that trip.

Kevin Gilliam

I'm glad you chimed in, Kevin--I couldn't remember your name. I'd completely forgotten that the goat pulled over the bench immediately afterwards!

Erik,
If it makes you feel any better, I couldn't remember whether you were the 3rd person or not. The video of the shot is a riot to watch. The goat starts off hidden behind the table, then comes out in the open as the train comes into view. Right as you snapped your picture, goat makes for the tree, moving the table and turning over the bench in the process. It is just one of those spontaneous things that could not have been staged any better. The few people that have seen that clip have died laughing.

All seriousness though, full credit must go to Nils for that shot. It may have been staged with us having to move the tables and benches (and I believe the goat was somewhere else to begin with also!), but as your shot proves, it looks "right". Now to redo it in sunlight on the 2005 John Craft annual half-day Strasburg charter ;-)

Kevin