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Railfan Information:

Railfaning during the night can pose for a completely different experience compared to daylight operations. The rush of the oncoming train in the darkness is, well, nothing short of thrilling. Watching the horizon getting brighter from the locomotive's headlight, while listening to the rush of sound headed your way. The train horns and crossing signals seem much more loud with the lower volume of street traffic nearby.

While regular flash bulb shots are hard to take correctly, long exposure shots are not as difficult. In order to take higher quality exposure shots, a tripod is a must. Any camera movement will result in a photo, such as this: This is also what a drunk might see while driving! As I was saying, a tripod is a must. When taking long exposure shots of a moving train, open the shutter when the train is about 5 seconds from being in the picture, and allow the shutter to be open at least 15 seconds. My digital camera, a Canon Powershot A40, which took all of my daytime pictures along with the night time shots, has a shutter time maximum of 15 seconds. This allows for a long enough exposure in most cases to get the correct amount of light on a subject. Keep experimenting with different angles, F-stops, and shutter speeds to get the correct effects.

All text and images are copyright of Zack Segur, unless otherwise noted. 2000-2007