Waiting to Serve

Iowa Traction motor #50 sits on the AGP spur. It is Friday night, and the locomotive will sit there until it begins work again on Monday morning. This soybean processing plant provides this unique railroad with numerous loads on a daily basis.

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Comments

Homer from Springfield says:

Nice. What did you use for lighting the locomotive? Bulbs? Electronic flash?
Posted 29 months ago. ( permalink )

wales23us says:

Electronic flash done the same way flashbulbs are used. Camera was set up on the tripod with an 8 second exposure and I fired the flash manually three times while the shutter was open. One on the front and two down the side. I use a Nikon SB600 for the D70S. With freshly charged NiMH batteries it recycles pretty fast. It also allows you to set the amount of light for the focal length of the lens--a wide spill for a 28mm or a narrower pattern useful with a short tele-70mm. I used the narrower pattern since it reduces the spill onto the ground and doesn't overexpose the foreground. Probably more than you need to know, but doing digital night shots is fun since you can see the results on the back of the camera and adjust the light on the spot.
Posted 29 months ago. ( permalink )

Wisconsin Engineer says:

Great looking night shot !
Posted 29 months ago. ( permalink )

ICE_6418 says:

great night shot Lance.....traction is soooo cool....most railfans dont give two damsn about it though...stupid people...anyway.....do you find that your viewfinder is a big lier when it comes to night photos.....?
Posted 29 months ago. ( permalink )

wales23us says:

I don't really understand what you are saying about the viewfinder "lying" though Ian. It is sort of hard to compose night shots sometimes, but that is mainly due to the dark subject. This one was pretty easy as the elevators are lit up pretty good so it was easy to set the left side and I knew that I wanted the wafting steam (or whatever vapor is coming from the plant) on the right. The focusing system on the D70S can be fooled pretty easily at night though, and I really don't like the manual focusing ring on the lens. I'll sometimes use an older manual lens with the D70S body if that lens isn't giving me a good 'feel' that it is focusing. This scene didn't present a problem though and it locked onto the 50 pretty easily. I will also try to shoot with a smaller f-stop to give a bit more of a depth of field too--that helps to overcome the focus if I don't happen to be locked on to the subject. This shot was 8 seconds at f8 with an ISO of 320, I think--check the "more properties" in the right hand column.
Posted 29 months ago. ( permalink )

powercat75 says:

The combo of train and night, very nice.
Posted 23 months ago. ( permalink )

McIvory says:

Is this railroad still going on?
Posted 16 months ago. ( permalink )

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Additional Information

Taken in Mason City, Iowa (map)
Taken with a Nikon D70s.
More properties
Taken on August 3, 2007
Viewed 192 times

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