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This Durango & Silvertondaily winter train is on the “High Line” in the Animas Canyon north of Durango, Colorado in January 1981. Hiking in to a remote location like this in heavy snow can be taxing as well as a little dangerous, but properly prepared, the effort can be worth it. Even a short walk in remote areas in cold weather should not be taken lightly by being unprepared. Always be dressed properly, head to toe.
they will regain power when warmed up. Lenses, too, may focus more slowly, even if you are focusing manually (which is recom- mended in some dark weather conditions — see below). The best defense against both battery and camera failure is to keep your camera warm under your coat until ready to use, then return it to cover to wait on the next train. It also helps to have an extra set of fresh batteries in an interior pocket where they will keep warm. When your camera’s batteries start getting weak, swap out with the warm batteries and place the cold ones in your pocket to warm up, and rotate them again as necessary.
Another alternative (if you have such a beast and know how to set exposure without a meter) is an old, all-manual film camera (Nikon F or FM, Canon F, Pentax K1000, Olympus OM-10, TLRs, etc.) which will not be affected by the cold, other than the bat- tery which powers the light meter. However, film itself can become brittle and tear when cold, so crank the film advance slowly. For this reason, electronic film cameras with au- to film load can also tear the film when load- ing in extreme cold, so load your film while it is still warm and keep extra film warm in an interior pocket.
Condensation on lenses is another prob-
info@melvinphotos.com www.melvinphotos.com
16 OCTOBER 2013 •
RAILFAN.COM
lem in cold weather, and this can happen even in milder cold such as 10 or 20 degrees above zero. Going from outside in these tem- peratures to back in your warm car can cause condensation to fog the end glass in your lens, as well as the viewfinder, render- ing the camera unusable until the condensa- tion clears. This is also not a good time to
change lenses as that exposes the end ele- ment to condensation. Wiping it off with lens tissue is not a solution, as the condensation will reappear about as fast as it is removed, until the camera and lens temperature slow- ly warms.
Exposure and Focus
A snow landscape under bright sun can wrongly influence exposure meters to under- expose for the main subject, as the snow re- flects a lot of extra light into the scene, caus- ing the meter to stop the exposure down and yield a too dark photo. Camera meters are calibrated to render everything as a middle tone of 18 per cent gray, but snow is not mid- dle tone, so in bright snow compositions it is best to spot meter off an 18 per cent gray (medium light gray) card or similar toned exposure compensation dial set for one stop more exposure. Heavy falling snow can also fool a meter as well as autofocus systems. With all the white flakes swirling around causing a very low contrast scene as well as being at differ- ent distances from the camera, autofocus has nothing specific to lock onto. Similarly, an average meter reading may lock onto all the whiteness in the air and cause an under- exposure of the main scene. Again, spot me- tering an 18 per cent gray item then setting exposure manually, along with manual fo- cus, are best.
A really major problem when photograph- ing trains in dim light of heavy cloud cover or in falling rain or snow is that autofocus, as well as autoexposure systems, can be fooled by the train’s headlights. Instead of
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