Photography tips to record a train journey?

[Ramsden]

Hi folks 

Please see the photos of a book cover and an inside page. For UK train enthusiasts, i guess this is a very interesting record of a journey from London to Edinburgh.

In October this year my son and I are planning to go from London to Aberdeen, in one journey. It takes quite a long time, and goes through some wonderful countryside.

My strategy is to record photographs of the journey from the train window, often at over 100mph, and with not many station stops. I guess I would like to put them on line in, as a photographic record of the scenery and railway infrastructure.

So EOS90D in hand and not a lot of lenses to choose from. At the moment I'm thinking of sticking with my kit lens EFS 18-135, but I'll probably take my 50 and 100mm Primes.

I will do as much research beforehand to know where signals and way markings are along the route, just for a few staging points along the route.

To my question: tips for shooting through probably dirty, wet windows often at speed and autumnal conditions.

Secondly, what camera settings would you recommend, particularly for speed?

Plus of course, interesting ideas for making the photography interesting!

 

I expect that the finished package would be around 1000 pictures. Crazy idea?

Feedback welcome 

Ramsden 

[LeeP]

"To my question: tips for shooting through probably dirty, wet windows often at speed and autumnal conditions."

If somehow you can leverage those dirty, wet windows to create a sense of "yesteryearness" that would be very creative. In post, flip the pictures to black and white and they won't feel so modern and that will add an emotional texture to the images.

"Secondly, what camera settings would you recommend, particularly for speed?"

I'd go with Tv and set a fast shutter speed. Where you may want to do some thinking is vis a vis the autofocus mode so that the camera isn't hunting and missing what your mind's eye saw.

"Plus of course, interesting ideas for making the photography interesting!"

Aside from what I said above, depending on your son's willingness to model, you could use him to convey the image of a "random" passenger with a window seat. Imagine a side view of his face as he looks straight ahead "missing" the scenery. Imagine his face partially turned toward the window looking out at the scenery. Imagine him facing the window and have the camera overlooking his shoulder. If you're a gregarious bloke--sorry, couldn't resist--you could strike up conversations with people and use them as passenger models too. Remember that the scenery inside can very easily relate to that of the outside. Photos of the countryside are better with a human element, but that of course is not always possible.

And by the way, do you wide-angle lens? The 18mm side of your zoom is the equivalent of a 30ish mm lens. If you have a wider wide-angle, I'd take that rather than the relatively useless primes that are rendered redundant by the zoom. If they aren't EFS remember to multiply the focal length by 1.6 to get the full frame equivalent for reference.

[Ramsden]

Hi Lee

Thanks, as ever for an excellent response to my questions. I almost didnt post it, for fear of being ridiculed! 

The B&W makes perfect sense, and I hadn't thought about the auto focus, which is equally relevant.

My son, who also has a Canon, won't mind being photographed and I think I can strike up a conversation with fellow travellers. The journey takes over 7hrs with 17 station stops. The mixture of scenery changes quite alot once we get 80 miles North of London. We have rolling hills and acres of agricultural land, leading up to the last stretch along the Scottish East coast.

Re the lens, and you've preempted my next planned post. I have an EFS 10-18 wide angle, which is ok, but has its limitations. So on my shopping list for new lenses is a slightly bigger Wide Angle lens. But, I'm out of my depth, and struggling to understand the numbers and performance  criteria. Ideally, I would be looking for something to capture an English Cricket match, wide shot across a field with about 15+ people. And on my walks, more expansive scenery/landscape shots.

So question is what would you recommend for the next step up from my 10-18mm

Thanks as ever 

Ramsden 

 

[SignifDigits]

Other than the excellent suggestions of @LeeP I would recommend considering including blurred foreground as part of at least some of your photographs.  Rather than trying to capture photos as being NOT on a train (and you may want to get some of those too) take some photos in a range (say 1/100-200th) that will allow a reasonable aperture, still your camera shake, but allow the foreground to blur.  1/1000 to 1/4000 or so will freeze 100mph items.

I would not suggest pressing the lens to the window to stabilize the camera for most of them.  I often use rocks, trees, posts, etc. for stabilization, but the train car moves a lot and I think the human body dampening some of the bumps might be useful.

But I suggest that you start practicing and chimping from the time the train moves so that you find out whether I'm right or wrong about that, and for you to gain confidence so that when a beautiful stream or interesting historic landmark or perfect sunset or .... comes by.  I would want to be set in 10 fps burst mode for those times so that I could choose the frame that with the best composition, rather than hoping I got that composition right with one or two frames.

Another thought would being back far enough in the train to actually catch the train in photos on curves and/or perhaps even a trestle.

I suspect you'll take a lot more than 1,000 and whittle them down to maybe a 1,000.  If you have a laptop and external SSD with Canon DPP4 installed you can download a day at a time and use Quick Check to mark and delete rejects.  For me, that's what I do every day of a trip.  I then have a copy on the computer system SSD and copy to my external SSD drive.  Then I clear my camera for the next day.  Losing any of those photos by not having a backup scheme would be hugely disappointing.

It sounds like a wonderful adventure and great idea to me!  Hope you enjoy it!

[LeeP]

"I would not suggest pressing the lens to the window to stabilize the camera for most of them."

This is really good advice not just from a technique standpoint but also if the lens is focus hunting, pressing the camera against the window could interfere with the mechanism.

I was thinking about @Ramsden's 1000 pictures and laughed about my cantankerous R8. It would probably have electrical fits the second the battery got low-ish, but it made me want to add to the suggestion pool the good practice of bringing an extra fully charged battery or two.

[LeeP]

Definitely bring the 10-18mm because you will find it VERY useful to capture the ambiance inside the train.

Just remember when lens shopping that if the lens is not an EF-S that you'll need to multiply the focal length number by 1.6 to get a "35mm" equivalent for your APSC camera. On my R8 my 15-30mm RF zoom is just that, but on my R100 it becomes a 24-48mm zoom effectively.

I would kill for the 7-14mm fisheye zoom, but it costs $1900. That's not a bad price for such a niche lens, but it is a big enough price that it's not happening this month. I'd buy it this month but I'm doing a lot of preventative maintenance on my daughter's Kia so that it remains flawlessly reliable and we keep it going issue free for another 50,000 miles, and the list of things I'm doing preventively will hit that amount.

[Ramsden]

Hi

Thanks for your very helpful suggestions. 10 fps is a great shout and where and how to hold the camera is equally helpful. 

Re the 1000 photos - that will hopefully be the finished article, so clearly intend to shoot more. Hopefully I will get an Autumn moon rising  as we travel along the coast of Scotland. Your advice is gratefully received. I'm really glad I made the post now!

I will practice on some local trains beforehand to get used to moving train and play around with shutter speeds and apertures.

Thanks again 

Ramsden 

[Ramsden]

Thanks again Lee

Really appreciate your help

Ramsden 

[Ramsden]

Any advice on the wide angle?

[SignifDigits]

This one looks nice for your camera - also available very reasonably used - I haven't personally used one but it gets good reviews.  Seems it might be only a slight upgrade over the 10-18 though, and some think it's not worth the additional cost and not even as good as the 10-28 in some ways?    I thought Lee was suggesting the primes might not be work carrying mostly.  What are you thinking you need to upgrade and why?

https://www.usa.canon.com/shop/p/ef-s-10-22mm-f-3-5-4-5-usm