Steam Driven

With my previous steam engine attempt foiled by a combination of fading sunlight, creeping shadows and a slight mis-judgement in just how fast the train would be thundering past, a change in plan was taken for this attempt..

With a half day off work, a print of the time-table and a bit of a scout of the area on google maps, I was on my way to spot, Bittern, a 72 year old A4 steam locomotive of the same design as the famous Mallard (holder of the world speed record for a steam locomotive). My choice of location this time: a nice head on, sweeping bend with no over-shadowing trees or embankment, lit by the sun from slightly behind, with a footpath crossing to get trackside, but with plenty of view to see it coming. As it turns out the view was nice and clean of obstructions, telegraph wires and general modern clutter. The track was also on a slight incline , so the engine would be producing more steam, bonus!

Still a couple of meters away from the track - partially because of a fence and partially due to nervous paranoia after the ground shaking Tangmere experience - I chose a fairly wide shot (29mm) to encompass some of the nice surroundings, the lines holding one corner in place. The dim light forced some less than ideal settings: ISO 1600, a fairly shallow aperture of f/6.3 and -1 stop exposure compensation (using center weighted metering) to keep my shutter speed up (1/400s). I've used Neat Image to reduce the noise and did some brightening of the RAW image to bring out the details...