Hello!
The new and improved Trackside with Trains.com is now live on TrainsMag.com. This week,Trackside with Trains.com Volume 81 features your old friend Mike Yuhas in addition to Trains magazine associate editor Andy Cummings.
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Add your comments about this week's photos here.
Thanks! Erik
Two excellent images!
For me, the inclusion of the grafitti-cover boxcar ruined the otherwise wonderful shot of rural railroading. Perhaps a bit of zoom and shift to the left (to place the farm more towards the left-third spot) would have done it.
Mike's shot looks really cool. What does it for me is how the train is illuminated so well (almost reminds me of O. Winston Link). And I really liked the contrast between the dark sky and the locomotive.
Mike gets the vote this week.
And Mike, btw, I LOVED that shot with the ultra-blue sky!!! (the one you didn't use)
Welcome Andy. You made the voting a little harder, since I do like your choice a lot, but had to go with Mike's, since it almost looks like a great painting. Very impressive, Mike!
Mookie
She who has no signature! cinscocom-tmw
A decent night shot is tough to come by. The shot Mike put up (IMO) is a very good shot. I like the balance of color and it's "late night" feel. Kudos to Mike for that picture!
Andy's CNW heritage shot showed a typical setting for a CNW line: EMD power through farm country. I'm not being blase in any sense, FWIW. That picture 'fit' with it's mix of farm, RR, and scenery.
All that being said...I had to go with Mike's shot for the vote. Night shooting is tougher to pull off well and he sure did it. Catching the 1995 tho would have been a treat. Great job both of you!
Dan
Ow!
I hate when this happens.
They're both great shots, both "speak" to me. My avatar locomotive is in Andy's shot; many images from my past come up in Mike's shot, including what I assume was a warm night breeze moving the weeds.
Sorry, Andy, you're taking on the reigning champ, since Erik abdicated. Mike gets the coin-toss.
Carl
Railroader Emeritus (practiced railroading for 46 years--and in 2010 I finally got it right!)
CAACSCOCOM--I don't want to behave improperly, so I just won't behave at all. (SM)
Maybe I'm just an overly technical photographer, but both shots to me were nice, but lacked...er..."polish" maybe?
Andy, I really, really liked your shot and it's rural charm but it just seemed soft on my monitor. Did you use USM when you resized it for the web? There's definately enough DOF so it's not a focus problem. It doesn't seem like motion blur or anything like that. It just doesn't have the snap I look for.
Mike, I really had a tough time with your shot. I like it, but the lens flare and the noisy sky just kept drawing my attention away from the shot. I see you shot at 47mm. If memory serves me correctly, I think you have an EF 50mm f1.8 in your lens arsenal. If that is the case, you might think about using it instead of a zoom for situations feauturing strong, direct lighting like this. Again if memory serves me, the 50mm f1.8 is a simple 4 element Tessar derived design. With good lens coatings, and very few air spaced elements, flare should be much better controlled.
In the end, I tried to focus on the emotional impact of the shots. I really like the rural charm that Andy's shot conveyed, so that's where my vote went.
-ChrisWest Chicago, ILChristopher May Fine Art Photography"In wisdom gathered over time I have found that every experience is a form of exploration." ~Ansel Adams
CopCarSS wrote:Mike, I really had a tough time with your shot. I like it, but the lens flare and the noisy sky just kept drawing my attention away from the shot. I see you shot at 47mm. If memory serves me correctly, I think you have an EF 50mm f1.8 in your lens arsenal. If that is the case, you might think about using it instead of a zoom for situations feauturing strong, direct lighting like this. Again if memory serves me, the 50mm f1.8 is a simple 4 element Tessar derived design. With good lens coatings, and very few air spaced elements, flare should be much better controlled.
Yes, Chris, you're right -- if I was actually thinking, I would've used the 50mm f1.4 fixed focal length lens. Lesson learned
mikeyuhas wrote: Yes, Chris, you're right -- if I was actually thinking, I would've used the 50mm f1.4 fixed focal length lens. Lesson learned
Ahh... you've got the 1.4...Erik must've had the 1.8. The 1.4 is a Double Gauss with 7 (IIRC) elements, so it's not as simple as the Tessar derived design but should still be a little better at flare control than most zooms.
....I vote for the CN night shot of Mike's. It is a nice rendition of night photography.
Andy's wide view of train passing out in the country is very nice. I happen to like the results of special efforts of night photos, and must choose between the two.
Quentin
Brian (IA) http://blhanel.rrpicturearchives.net.
Both good shots...
The new player is giving you a run for the money right out of the box, Mike!
Hard choice, but Mike's just squeaked out a little ahead...the surreal look to it made it seem a lonely job working its way home....
23 17 46 11
Hmmm. I should make the prepublication conference-lunch with Mike and the week's opponent-a regular event. This week we are asked to choose between two excellent photos, but each of a very different photographic style. Makes for kind of a tough call.
I went with Andy's. I happen to like photographs of railroads in a more scenic setting and his emphatically says "This is Wisconsin".
Oh yes, for Andy, welcome to the "Clash of the Cameras". No doubt the competitive rush is right up there with your past life as a Double O.
"We have met the enemy and he is us." Pogo Possum "We have met the anemone... and he is Russ." Bucky Katt "Prediction is very difficult, especially if it's about the future." Niels Bohr, Nobel laureate in physics
With what was left of the sunlight from the left, it almost looks like Mike hired some floodlights for the night shot. Makes for a very sharp contrast. I am wondering how much longer after this shot that light was available...couldnt have been too long. Timing is everything in this shot, and once again patience and dedication to the art of railroad photography pays off...at least, with my vote.
I likes Andy's photo also. If the first car behind the engines had been a covered hopper, or better yet, if the angle was such that it looked like a grain train passing in front of the soon-to-be harvested corn, it would have been a more difficult harded decision.
JSGreen wrote:With what was left of the sunlight from the left, it almost looks like Mike hired some floodlights for the night shot. Makes for a very sharp contrast. I am wondering how much longer after this shot that light was available...couldnt have been too long.
Actually, JS, it was lit up like that all night -- what you see on the side of the SD40-3 is light from the nearby factory, not old Sol.
Welcome Andy, and welcome back Mike.
As much as I'd like to vote for an upper-midwesterner (I'm originally from North Dakota), I had to give Mike's shot the "X". What a fascinating study. To be completely honest, I liked his other night shot even better.
Andy's photo was nicely composed, but nothing really jumped out that shouted "I'm outstanding, vote for me". I hope he'll return to the competition from time to time because he seems to have a lot of potential.
TJB / Nashville, TN
Mike gets the vote...absolutely the best thing he has done since I started reading the column!
I LIKE ANDYS PHOTO AS WE DONT GET MANY LIKE IT AND WITH THE SPECIAL ENG ON THE NOSE IT REALLY IS SPECIAL. KEEP UP THE GOOD START ANDY.
DEPOT
CopCarSS wrote:Uhhh...Jay...wasn't this week's competitor Andy and not Jason?
Sorry Andy. Shouldn't post at the same time I'm trying to keep track of a two year old Grandchild. I can't remember the other reasons.
This new chapter of Trackside opens with two great photos.
Andy's UP shot has great scenic perspective, with the CNW heritage unit and the tunnel motor adding to it. I think what is really eyecatching about the photo is the green shade of the heritage unit's paint scheme against the green hill of the farm in the background. The change in the tree color also give it an airy feel.
Even though not as colorful with the grey, unpainted engine, Mike's CN shot is a bit more visually intriguing. Although it may or may not have been Mike's objective, the shot does have a rather spooky feel to it in line with Halloween, with the darkened sky and misty-looking weed movement against the consist making it look like it's emerging out of a cloud. Even the blandness of the engine makes it look ghostly in appearance. Though very bright, even the headlight adds to the shot in my opinion, almost like blending the real and the imaginary. In short, there is definitely a ghost train kind of feel to Mike's shot, and this appealed to me more, so Mike won my vote for this week.
- Bryan
I have to agree, the heritage unit takes it!
Andy, Welcome, The WSOR shot would've got my vote too, so save it for later.
Ed
Thanks for the fun Erik and glad to see you still get your name "in print" alongside this column
Mike and Andy ... what can we say! Both shots have their attraction.
Andy, welcome to the column and great that you have provided a shot that is competitive. Initially I thought I'll be going with the night shot until I had a closer look at yours. There is good color saturation and the subject drew me in to have a closer look at the detail. Pity that the detail of the loco numbers is not very sharp, makes deciphering the numbers a little hard. Someone bagged the grafetti'd first car as being bad. To me that adds to the shot showing the reality of todays world where nothing is sacred, including railway (I am in NZ) assets on railway property which is private property I thought
Mike, you have your work cut out for you if the others put up this calibre of photo I actually liked your 1st pic better for its saturation of color for a night shot, ... until you mentioned that if was white-balanced for the ambient light. Still like it though, its a beauty! Your second shot was a little disappointing in that the glare of the ambient light, which appears to have been VERY bright, and the lens flare kind of ruins it some. Thinking about it though and your comments about it make it a well executed shot has mentioned by others.
Upshot is that the decision of who gets the vote is harder. I took some time to read comments already posted before making my decision and thought that Mike was going to get a landslide. On seeing the current results, Andy 33%, Mike 67%, Mike is being pushed hard.
So who got the vote? Andy.
Why? I don't know ... better color and feel for railroading in action. If Mike had put in his other pic, the decision would have been Mike without question.
If this is the sort of competition we are going to get, this is going to be a fun column to follow
StephenDx: Computers and trains are my greatest interests GMT +12hrs (+13 in summer)
1st off, Welcome to trackside with Trains.com Andy. I liked your UP heritage shot a lot except for the very same reasons as stated above on clarity and cropping, had you pulled in closer & used USM on the shot, you'd have had an exceptional shot there. Erik, I also agree with several others here, the first night shot with the artificial blues was by far and away the better of the two shots you showed us. having said that I still went with your second shot for my vote as it just had more feel to it than Andy's. I look forward to seeing more of Andy's shots in future editions. Good luck on the new format, and give Erik a hello from all of us.!
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