Mr. Toy wrote:The way to minimize shutter lag is to press and hold the shutter button half way and let it focus on the tracks several seconds before the train arrives. This will keep delay to an absolute minimum. Then press the shutter the rest of the way as the locomotive comes into view, but a little before it is where you want it to be. This will take care of any remaining lag.That's kind of hit or miss... there have been times where I pre-focused the area and then took the shot as the train came into view and it came out beautifully. Other times, the train is blurred but the rest of the shot is clear.
If you want to freeze the motion, use a fast shutter speed. If you want to blur it, use a slow shutter speed.
You can practice with traffic on the street.
I purchased a Canon PowerShot SD400 which has some Manual settings, not many, but enough to manage. One thing I particularly like about it is that I can set the camera to "Sunny" or "Cloudy" and cloudy shots come out very nice. With my old Sony, cloudy shots would always be blurred, without fail.
But where were they going without ever knowing the way?