Railroad Forums 

  • Reflectors Glow

  • Discussion of photography and videography techniques, equipment and technology, and links to personal railroad-related photo galleries.
Discussion of photography and videography techniques, equipment and technology, and links to personal railroad-related photo galleries.

Moderators: nomis, keeper1616

 #441102  by Conrail1990
 
I am having an issue with my camera where it highlights the reflectors on Locomotives and freights and pretty much anything that reflecs light.

Examples:

Image
Image

My camera is an Olympus Stylus 740. Any way I can change it so it dosent reflect the reflectors?

 #441111  by MEC407
 
Turn the flash off.

 #441128  by Conrail1990
 
Tryed it. The picture is alot more blurry without the flash.

 #441129  by Orgnoi1
 
The flash is the main reason for the reflection. What you will need to do is not only turn it off... but see if there is a way to keep your shutter speeds to where you need them... that can be done a few ways... boosting your ISO (if available), manually setting your shutter speed (if available), or opening up your aperture (if available).

You can also try (and dont laugh) putting a piece of tissue paper over the flash if you cant get to any of the settings above... but quite frankly your shooting in daylight so if you cant get your shutter speeds up without the flash theres something wrong...

 #441135  by Conrail1990
 
My camera has an image stabilizer so I experimented with that. I turned the flash off and got a clear shot.

 #441165  by pennsy
 
Ahhh, the miracle of Automatic Cameras that require no experience on the part of the photographer. Try reading the operating manual that comes with the camera.

 #441290  by RailBus63
 
You need to learn how to use your camera without flash - it is dangerous to fire a flash in the face of an engineer or operator and potentially harm their vision while they are operating such a large vehicle.

For starters, most cameras have a shutter-priority mode which will allow you to maintain a shutter speed high enough to freeze motion - learn how to use this.

 #441396  by RussNelson
 
RailBus63 wrote:You need to learn how to use your camera without flash - it is dangerous to fire a flash in the face of an engineer or operator and potentially harm their vision while they are operating such a large vehicle.
What's the danger? Might they swerve and hit you? If a bright flash is dangerous, then why do trains run through a lightningstorm?

I suggest that the danger of taking flash photos is more one of annoying the engineer and creating an anti-railran.

 #441430  by MEC407
 
Well, regardless of the potential dangers or annoyances, there really is no reason to be using the flash in broad daylight. Some people occasionally use "fill flash" outdoors, which can be useful for portraits (especially if the subject is backlit), but most of the time, it's best to just leave it turned off when you're outside... especially with point-and-shoot cameras.

 #441515  by RailBus63
 
RussNelson wrote:What's the danger? Might they swerve and hit you? If a bright flash is dangerous, then why do trains run through a lightningstorm?

I suggest that the danger of taking flash photos is more one of annoying the engineer and creating an anti-railran.
Haven't you ever had someone take a picture of you with a flash camera? It's not uncommon to see spots afterwards - hardly the ideal situation for a railroad engineer who must look far down the track and respond to signal indications long before the train actually reaches the signal itself.

 #441658  by RussNelson
 
That doesn't explain why railroads operate through a lightning storm ... or down trackage parallel to a road, where car headlights might ruin an engineer's night vision for a period of time.

The problem is exactly as I stated earlier: be polite to engineers, because they can either smile and wave, or scowl and give you the finger. There's no safety issue at all. If you're close enough for your flash to be a problem, you're probably trespassing (light diminishes as the inverse square of the distance). If flashes were a safety issue, O. WInston Link would have been taken out and shot. His philosophy was "Never use one flash when ten would do."

 #441865  by Ken W2KB
 
RussNelson wrote:That doesn't explain why railroads operate through a lightning storm ... or down trackage parallel to a road, where car headlights might ruin an engineer's night vision for a period of time.

The problem is exactly as I stated earlier: be polite to engineers, because they can either smile and wave, or scowl and give you the finger. There's no safety issue at all. If you're close enough for your flash to be a problem, you're probably trespassing (light diminishes as the inverse square of the distance). If flashes were a safety issue, O. WInston Link would have been taken out and shot. His philosophy was "Never use one flash when ten would do."
O. Winston Link had the cooperation of the railroads for his photos and the crews were well aware of the location. Car headlight issues for the most part are easily avoidable by not looking directly into them, and lightning flashes tend not to be that much of a concern unless very close. I've operated the speeder at night runs and in that respect it is not much different than driving an automobile.

However, a camera flash is essentially beamed directly at the engineer and the engineer has no warning to avert his eyes as can be done with other light sources. Indeed the engineer may be looking right at the photographer considering sounding the horn.

I've had my photo taken in the speeder at night, and that did have a substantially greater adverse impact than any other light source.

 #442033  by railohio
 
I hope you guys don't actually think the flash from a crappy little digital camera has any effect beyond ten feet. Even a shoe-mount flash in an SLR is rarely more powerful than 150 feet. If you're standing that close for your photos you've probably got bigger problems.

~BS