Fordyce & Princeton No. 1805,a 1964 GP28, enters Monroe, La., shot with a Pentax 2 MP EI 200 P&S.
with the memories of those hours spent trackside. For while the L&NW still oper- ates, the F units are long gone.
110 and APS Over 20 years ago, a photography magazine ran an article on a newspaper photographer who worked with the Pentax 110 SLR sys- tem and Plus-X (ASA 125) film instead of ASA 400 Tri-X. His reasoning was the low ISO film would allow nice 5×7 inch blowups from the small negatives, with plenty of quality for the small size reproduction in the paper printed with course printing screens on newsprint. And the little Pentax with all its accessory lenses and flash unit was small in size and weight making it easier to carry than a comparable 35mm system of camera bodies and several lenses. The example pho- tos from the 110 published with that maga- zine article were beautiful. More recently, I have experimented some with a Pentax APS camera I acquired while working at the Pentax U.S.A. headquarters, and while very limited in the size prints it can produce that retain acceptable sharp- ness, much like the 110 above it does a nice job with prints up to about 3×5 inches, which I suspect is typical of all APS format film cameras.
Either of these little cameras would be suitable for railfan use if you only need small prints to display in a photo album.
Small Mega Pixel P&S Another small camera I have found to yield excellent photos despite its small size and other limitations is one of Pentax’s first dig- itals, the 2 MP EI 200 P&S. I was so im- pressed with this little camera (which as I understand was
a collaboration with
Hewlett Packard producing the electronics, and Pentax the lens and body) I used my em- ployee discount to buy one for my wife as a Christmas present in 2001, and we still use the EI 200 on occasion for family snapshots. And it was the camera used for another of my spur of the moment railfan exploits on a Louisiana trip. One of those shots was used in my article “Digital Photography for the Railfan” in the April 2007 R&R. Despite limited features for train photog-
raphy, cameras like this can produce some nice images. Again, the key is to work within the camera’s limitations. Aside from the low MP count which limits print size account of pixilation, one problem with the EI 200 and other low end digitals is too long a “shutter
lag” to consistently get perfect compositions with moving trains. Shoot when the train is in the perfect position, and in the second or so of lag time until the shutter fires, the front of the locomotive may be out of the edge of your composition. But for roster shots of sta- tionary locomotives, this is not an issue. You’ll find that 2 MP is more than adequate for beautiful prints up to 5×7 inches, and a 4 MP camera will give you larger prints or crisp images for a digital slide show.
Another problem with some P&S digitals (even higher MP models like the more mod- ern 12 MP Canon G9 which I sometimes use for railfanning), is a long “write time” which freezes the camera after one shot while the image is recorded, making quick follow-up shots impossible. Not a problem if you shoot only stationary roster shots, but for action shooting you will want a “burst mode” to al- low several quick shots, even if it is rated at just two or three shots. Other P&S drawbacks include limited (no manual) exposure control, a lens maybe too “slow” for low light shooting (however, a few models offer lenses of ƒ1.8 or ƒ2), and some may also be limited in top shutter speeds to less than ¹⁄₅₀₀, about the minimum for sharp action train photos. Other questions you’ll need to answer include does the P&S have an optical viewfinder for careful composition (the trend today is no viewfinder, making you compose by looking at the LCD screen)? If you like to take time exposures or use open flash at night, does the P&S have a “B” setting or capability for a shutter opening of 30 or more seconds? Will the camera take a cable release, and is there a tripod socket? But like I did with the XA and the EI 200, with forethought and careful use, many of these problems can be worked with to pro- duce nice train photos, by working within the specific camera’s limitations and capa- bilities.
Cell Phone Cameras In the past, I would never have recommend- ed a cell phone camera for any kind of seri- ous railfan photography. Their main func- tion seemed to be for sharing a very low MP image to a friend’s phone, or for making very small prints. (My personal cell phone’s cam- era has a whopping 1.47 MP sensor! Wow! Great one inch enlargements!)
But many current cell phone cameras will produce images on a par with P&S digitals. I cannot speak to the overall quality of lens- es or digital processors in all phone cameras, but I have seen some nice 3×5 and 5×7 inch prints from 3 and 4 MP phone cameras, and test images printed from a friend’s 5 MP camera phone are beautiful even at 16×20 inches. Some camera phones are up to 10 MP now, and I understand at least one mod- el has a small zoom lens! Like the old, small film and low mega pixel cameras, if used carefully and within its limitations, you can grab an occasional nice railfan photo with a cell phone.
Soo Line #2719 pulls excursion trains from Duluth to Two Harbors in Northeastern Minnesota. All day excursions behind 1923 Alco Pacifi c. Trains depart from the Lake Superior Railroad Museum at the Depot in downtown Duluth on Fridays, Saturdays & Sundays, August 10th
-September 9th , 2012.
For reservations call the
North Shore Scenic Railroad
1-800-423-1273
www.lsrm.org
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