When things go wrong

Not sure if there is already a thread for this type of post, but if there is maybe a friendly mod will move me on!

Below is a photo I had set out to take on the Spa Valley Railway last Sunday. Full zoom, 300mm, and showing 34072 close up as that magnificent loco headed round the curve to Forge Farm Crossing with some infrastructure in the shot. Glancing at it before I paddled and splashed my way back up the lane to my car I thought, great, just the shot I wanted.

And then, with coffee poured and salami sandwich at the ready I looked at it in more detail.
Oh dear! I couldn't have got THAT result if I had set out to get it.

And in my mind I could hear these words - 'Do you think you used enough zoom there, Butch? So at least I could laugh!

 

struggling to see what you think is wrong....

 

I'm glad someone asked.

 

Nowt wrong wi' that, what's up wi' it?

 

Hi guys. Look a the bottom of the coach that is in view. To me it looks like a wheel from a coach behind that one, or even the far end of the coach in view, has jumped tracks and is running along the NR line!

So reminiscent of my early railway modelling days when badly laid pointwork could see a coach part way down a train do just that! Of course there is nothing wrong with the coach, or with the track in the photo and there is no pointwork there.

Bryan

 

I'm still confused as to how the amount of zoom would have changed the look of the coaches? Fwiw, the shot looks fine to me

 

The excessive zoom has in effect brought the medium background, which includes the NR track running across it, to look like the track is right up to the coach at the point it runs behind the coach. Giving what is a perfectly good coach the unsual look that Big Al commented on.

A photo of the same train the day before (below), taken with far less zoom at 118 mm, (full size sensor, so standard lens setting would be 50 mm), and taken from almost exactly the same spot, give or take a few centimetres, gives everything a totally normal look, beause it is much more obvious that the NR track curving behind the second coach is a long way behind it.

My Nikon 28-300 mm 'train photo' lens is doing wonderful things, but, to get the results I like, I am going to have to be much more careful with how much and where I use the 'big zoom' settings. Too much time photographing owls with a 500 mm lens!

 

I think both images are fine for me Bryan and I agree that too much focal length can distort however can also get you out of trouble with cropping. Horses for courses.
My problem photographing owls was always insufficient camera low-light ISO capability now apparent on more modern DSLRs!

 

The joy of a tele lens, makes this Bulleid's train look like it is climbing a 1 in 8 instead of a 1 in 80. Although that was the effect I was trying to achieve.

 

Wow!

 

You could always ask Kate to sort it.

 

Looking at it, I thought she already had.

 

Nothing a little cropping couldn’t solve though.

 

Yes indeed! I have actually got one shot at that location, similar to the second one I posted on this this thread (#9), without the twigs in front of the loco. Within a week or two that shot will have gone until next winter as spring growth in the vegetation the NR side of the line will block it off. But the shot from right up close to the crossing road gate should be ok. I would add that when taking a shot from close to the closed crossing gate I always raise an arm when the driver on the Spa Valley Railway or on the main line train sounds their whistle or horn on the approach - just so they know I am not about to use the foot crossing gate there. I guess many here would also do the same as a matter of course. And, on the one occasion a car has used the crossing on that private road (but public footpath) when I was there, I kept very well back from the electrically operated gate my side, and well to the side of the roadway to make sure the car driver had a totally clear drive across the two tracks.

It's not a location where the SPV railway locos will be working, because they shut off and brake for the yellow flag as they approach the crossing.

 

No, almost all the offending branches are out of reach and surely must only be approached by NR employees. Those to the right of my #9 photo are inside a fence on private land and therefore also need to be left alone.

But a photo charter with 34072 there on the SR green rolling stock would be of interest to me - a hurdle for me could be getting into and out of a coach at the lineside locations due to issues with my new hip and the unrebuilt hip I am trying to protect!

 

They don't help, but I don't think that I would bin the photo because of them