Flying Scotsman at speed

[John 2]

The heritage line through the North Yorkshire Moors is fairly busy with steam traffic at the moment. One of the problems of photographing these wonderful pieces of machinery is that they thunder past you but in capturing them, they are generally reduced to a silent static image. Can't do much about the sound but I wanted to try a panned shot to try to give the impression of some speed. Along this stretch of line, steam locos achieve there max allowable speed of about 75mph. I was fairly happy with the result but comments welcome.

Fuji X plus 55-200mm lens and 6x ND filter. Mounted on a gimbal head.

[ST1]

It looks good to me John the panning and the steam being blown back overcomes your worry about capturing a static image, well done. Where were you on the line to get this image



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[dje]

John I think you've done very well with this panned shot. Clever use of an ND filter strength to get a suitably slow shutter speed to achieve the panning blur for the background. With a shutter speed of 1/18 sec, you must have achieved very steady panning at just the right pace to get what is quite a sharp image judging by the clarity of the white number 60103 and the engine name. The motion blur of the coupling rods (?) adds a little interest too. I also like the wide format of the image.

How far away were you?

Dave

[John 2]

Thanks both of you for the comments.

Peter, if you check out the B6479 between Ribblehead and Horton in Ribblesdale, you can see a straight stretch just before Selside that is only abut 150yds from the line and more importantly has a small area where you can park the car.

Dave about 150yds. Very much a learning experience. Thinking it through, I put the camera on continuous and then panned to catch up to the number on the cab so the first few shots were rubbish but eventually there were a few that were sharp. The gimbal head took any vertical movement out of the equation. So that worked. Where I got it wrong was the exposure. I would have liked a little less blurring of the BG. I had set up the camera for a shutter speed of 1/30th but had left the camera on Aperture priority. It was one of those sunny days with lots of cumulus and the light was changing hence the SS of 1/18th. Lesson - use shutter priority, fix the speed and let the aperture take the strain.

[Shadowman]

Nice shot.

[Stagecoach]

Looks good to me John, perhaps just a wee bit over sharpened.

[Astramael]

I like this image very much. It does give that feeling of velocity you were looking for.

[ST1]

Thanks both of you for the comments.

Peter, if you check out the B6479 between Ribblehead and Horton in Ribblesdale, you can see a straight stretch just before Selside that is only abut 150yds from the line and more importantly has a small area where you can park the car.

Thanks John, I was confused I thought you meant the North Yorkshire Moors Railway (NYMR) I can now see you were on the Settle to Carlisle line South of Ribblehead Viaduct. I will have to have a trip along that stretch of road next time I'm in that part of the world.

[NorthernFocus]

I'd say mission accomplished. Well done.

[rpcrowe]

Nice bit of panning.

I half expected to see Donald wearing wings

[Dave Humphries]

Good John, very nice impression of speed - against a complimentary background too.

I tend to agree with Grahame about the sharpening though; there are a few places where an overly wide, bright halo has appeared, mostly between track and the undersides/around the wheels. I'm thinking you may need to treat these areas separately from others, else we might lose, for example, the clarity on the number.

HTH,
Dave

[Dave A]

Beauty image! It sure conveys speed.

Dave

[Cantab]

A wonderful image!

[John 2]

Thanks all for the additional comments.

Grahame/Dave. Dave, I think the halo on the rails and drive wheels is polished metal but there are some slight halos around some of the higher contrast areas. Must do better.

[IzzieK]

You who is hard to satisfy did a great job here. Perhaps you should do more next time you get to go that way again. Nice job. I like it.

[Wavelength]

You have done well with this image; one really feels the movement of the train

[John 2]

Thanks Izzie, thanks Nandakumar.

[bnnrcn]

Very nice trial John

[Rainforest]

It feels good to learn something AND get a good shot out of the deal. ;-) It is speedy and quite nice to look at.

[John 2]

Thanks Binnur, thanks Susan. I will try this again given the right conditions.