Classic All Alco Power


on the A&M! Arkansas Alcos:


We venture to Northern Arkansas to visit the operations of the Arkansas and Missouri rail- road with its still all-Alco fleet of motive power. Out of circulation for many years, this video is now on DVD for the first time. We did a total re- edit using the original tape & narration. See Arkansas & Missouri’s all-Alco fleet during April 1988. Freights with 3-unit and 4-unit C420’s to Fort Smith, and even a rare RS32. Local switch jobs with a C420, and another with an ex-N&W T-6. Publicity runs with their rare RS-1 number 22 on an over-under shoot with C420’s. Live audio and narration. 68 minutes $29.95


(free with order)


Catalog $2.00


Print


Previews and complete descriptions for these and many more at: www.gregschollvideo.com or at http://www.youtube.com/user/GregSchollVideo


S&H Standard US shipping add $5.00 for total order. Canada $9.00 for 1 or 2, and $3.00 each additional 1 or 2. Foreign $13.00 for 1 or 2, and $3.00 each extra 1 or 2. Ohio res. add 6.5% sales tax. All prices $US. Order by phone, mail, fax, or secure web site:


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MORNING SUN BOOKS


These all-color 128-page hardcover books will be available November 1, 2013


RAILROAD CRITTERS


VOLUME 4 By Stephen M. Timko Item# 1488


PRODUCTIONS Professional Videos • Prompt Service • Since 1984


While proper exposurein contrasty lighting such as seen in this photo taken with a Nikon D200 of a Union Pacific westbound leaving Leyden siding in Arvada on its way west on the “Moffat Line” is possible with film, digital makes it easy to pre-check the exposure with test shots before the train arrives. With film, a poor exposure setting would mean a missed shot.


“nailed” a good shot. With film and process- ing running $15-$20 for 36 shots, it was 50 cents every shutter press. With digital hun- dreds of photos cost all of $0 each. And while an otherwise good slide might be scratched, now we can easily repair this and other blemishes in the computer. And for those who continue to shoot film but scan their photos to process and print in the computer, obtaining beautiful inkjet prints are so much easier, quicker and cheaper then dark- room printing.


Most modern digital cameras offer posi- WEST FLORIDA RAILS


VOL. 1: THE EMERY GULASH COLOR PHOTOGRAPHY OF ACL & SAL 1957-1967


By Jerry A. Pinkepank Item# 1489


LEHIGH RIVER VALLEY WITH


TRACKSIDE


RANDOLPH KULP By Douglas E. Peters Item# 1490


Order today at price of $59.95 apiece plus $7 shipping (add $2 for each add’l book) Canada-$12; foreign-$21, each. All books are shipped via U.S. Mail.


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14 NOVEMBER 2013 • RAILFAN.COM


tional “live view” screens so we can compose from a low or high angle without laying down or climbing up on something. (I still cannot get used to composing on the screen, but having a clear view while reaching over a fence is a boon.) Even Polaroid has gone digital with a camera that makes instant 3×4 inch prints as well as a digital file. Pub- lishing is another area where digital has en- hanced railfan photography. In 2007, I wrote “If you shoot for publication, submitting dig- itally may be easier for both you and the ed- itor.” Editors of books, magazines and calen- dars now prefer digital submissions, as they are easier and cheaper to work with. But with the blessings come the curses,


such as the oft-heard fear that “digital would doom film.” Yes, some railfan film favorites have gone away: Kodachrome in 2010, and some versions of Tri-X and Plus-X. Fuji has discontinued all its ISO 400 films. Darkroom supplies are harder to find, at least at the lo- cal camera store which, if not already out of business, now caters to the cell phone camera/ machine processed print snapshot crowds. Yet it seems film’s decline (like vinyl records) has leveled out and its use will like- ly remain a minor facet of photography. Af- ter all, there is still interest in Daguerreo- type, wet plate and Tintype photography over a century after they ceased to be main- stream. Kodak, Ilford, Fuji and others still offer several varieties of film, and more col- leges are offering darkroom courses. Howev- er, film photographers may soon be able to buy only a used camera. Eight manufactur- ers each offer just one or two 35mm or medi- um format film cameras, and famous Has- selblad is out of the film camera business. But the effect of digital goes even deeper


than simple film replacement. Whereas Ko- dak proudly advertised in the 1890s that 90,000 of its roll film box cameras were in use, today over 4¹⁄₂ billion (yes, a B!) cell phone cameras are the far away favorite for most party, family and vacation photos. A photographer friend recently summed up what is rapidly becoming the state of pho- tography when commenting on one of the prize winners in a photo contest, who had no clue about how she achieved the photo: “There are still plenty of photographs but fewer and fewer photographers — the world of picture making has become a world of but- ton pushing and little else.”


Many cell phone cameras are now 6mp or


greater, and they have video, HDR (High Dy- namic Range to tame contrasty light), and image processing “apps” to touch up photos, order prints, and send photos instantly via e-mail. EXIF (Exchangeable Image File) records GPS location, date, and other photo data for later reference and ease of organiz- ing and retrieving. Some cell phones allow you to fire your DSLR remotely. The quality and ability of cell phone cameras is so high photojournalists and rather discriminating professional fine art, advertising and as- signment photographers are using them. All of this raises another very sobering possibility. With so many young photogra- phers wanting only the easier-to-use fea- tures of their cell phone or P&S cameras in- stead of a “large, heavy and expensive” DSLR, and longtime photographers begin- ning to retire, will enough new photogra- phers still be buying traditional cameras and the interchangeable lenses that go with them? Will it force Nikon, Canon, Olympus and the rest to discontinue making even the basic types of cameras (digital or film) railfans are used to, if there is insufficient market? But all these “photo technology” changes


may or may not be of interest to railfans who use cameras mainly to pursue their interest in trains, not as an interest in photography per se. As long as we can continue to be trackside, digital offers the best way to take and share train photos. So, in the words of my railfan friend Dr. Stan Blevins, “I fear photography, as we’ve known it, is going to become an alternative pursuit, cultivated by (diehard) old guys and the few new art stu-


PHOTOGRAPHY: GREG MONROE


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