Feature On My Night Photography in Sept. TRAINS

[Gary Knapp]

Hi Folks;

For everyone's awareness, the September issue of TRAINS magazine will include a FEATURE article on my night photography! A nighttime trackside interview with veteran railroad journalist Karl Zimmerman, (35 yrs. of published articles) last October, brings this dream feature to reality! It's not common for TRAINS to feature ANYONE'S photography, getting "a" photograph published is quite an accomplishment. So I'm very grateful for this opportunity to show what can be done with remote control flash units and CANON bodies at night along the railroad. One of my night photos also graces the cover for this issue. More on TRAINS here:http://www.kalmbach.com/kpc/default.aspx?c=a&id=30

So the view from "cloud nine" is extraordinary!

Two recent samples here: The quintessential New England village view with church is in Gorham, NH, shot with Zeiss ZF 35/2 at f2, and Canon 5D (ISO 1600 & 1/200) and the reflection photo is on Round Pond in Locke Mills, Maine. Shot with Zeiss 28/2 at f2 and Canon 5D, same settings as above.

Those of you interested in this type of photography should look this issue up!

All The Best;
Gary

 

[helenhill]

TRES COOOOOL........ Congrats Gary!

 

[Terry]

Congrats Gary!
They are both really cool but my kudos go to the second one which I'm sure was really hard to get right without seeing a flash reflecting in the water.

 

[eekimel]

Gary, those are outstanding pix. I love the light quality.

 

[Guy Mancuso]

Gary congrats on the train mag. Nice stuff as always. Love the first one.

Okay I will say it you should be thinking MF for this stuff. Phase backs will go up to a hour also. Plenty of time for painting

 

[Gary Knapp]

Thanks everyone and Guy!

MF....Phase backs sounds like a slippery slope Guy! Would I realize that much better IQ? Thanks for your thoughts!

Gary

 

[robmac]

Gary - congrats indeed. Nice to get some industry recognition for the fine work you've been doing.

BTW - having owned the 35/2, what do you think of the 28?

 

[Guy Mancuso]

Thanks everyone and Guy!

MF....Phase backs sounds like a slippery slope Guy! Would I realize that much better IQ? Thanks for your thoughts!

Gary

Yes you would. Certainly is way above the 35mm curve

 

[fotografz]

Thanks everyone and Guy!

MF....Phase backs sounds like a slippery slope Guy! Would I realize that much better IQ? Thanks for your thoughts!

Gary

Wrong guy to ask ... :ROTFL:

Don't ask me either

Very nice work Gary. Depending on the end use, it may be worth your while to rent a MF kit and try one. You put one hell of a lot of effort into these shots, and if you could realize even greater IQ it may be the slippery slope for you

"Abandon Hope All Ye Who Enter Here"

 

[Guy Mancuso]

Exactly my point Marc if you are going to tackle this kind of work which both Marc and i know exactly what you are doing and the effort involved than make the image sing for it. I agree rent one or get a demo and try one out. You will not be sorry to at least try it. Also it is not as bad as you think price wise, smart shopping and good advice from the folks here and our dealer friends it will not be that hard to get in the door money wise.

 

[Gary Knapp]

Hi Robmac;

I think very highly of the ZF 28/2. Having enjoyed Oly 28/2 and Leica 21-35 in the recent past, the Zeiss seems to resolve better/more to me. A noticeably different "3D look" to the image, (as one would hope after spending the $$$'s) a bargain when you figure you'll shoot with the lens for several years.

Gary

 

[Oxide Blu]

Cool pix, better than most.

Am I allowed a dumb question?!? ... What, if any, concern is there with the use of strobe lighting and its effect on the night vision of whoever is driving the train? I ask because using strobes at night it is a huge no-no for taking pix of cars on a highway, could get someone hurt, but a train is on a track. But still ... ?

 

[Guy Mancuso]

You probably should not. This one was parked and he had permission to shoot it. There is also i strobe in the cockpit ( lack of a better word). I know Gary uses quite a bit of strobes in his shots to get these something I think around 12 portables. Obviously he can answer this better but this takes him a lot of time to set up and a lot of effort. My kind of shooter to be honest, he works hard at this and it pays off. Plus he is also doing a lot of light painting

 

[Oxide Blu]

Ok, parked train makes sense. I was looking at the exhaust above/behind the locomotive (1st pic) and thought it could be in motion, though slowly. I had clipped and pasted the image into a viewer to look for the engineer, noticed one wasn't visible, thought maybe PS'd out for publishing issues (model release, etc).

Blinding the engineer (or not) aside those are some great images. And yes, putting the time into the setup pays off.

 

[Gary Knapp]

Okay, to clear things up somewhat, the trains are in motion and of course manned by crews. No flash units in cab therefore. All exterior lighting with twelve flash units controlled by Pocket Wizard radio remotes, the PW's have a 1600 ft. line of sight range! All are synched to the shutter up to 1/250, so when I take the photo they "go off" in the blink of an eye. For the crews benefit, when I see them coming into the scene, I fire off the lighting so they can see the track lit up ahead and look down or at the camera, etc., as they pass. No complaints from crews! So to simplify, I set up lighting coverage to include buildings to show location, and then let the train run into the scene. It's great for adrenaline production! LOL! Avg. set-up time is 45 min. Thanks for the positive thoughts Guy and all!

Gary

 

[Guy Mancuso]

Thanks Gary for giving us all the details of it . I was off about the train, sorry about that. Even better technique on your part though. Cool stuff