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Old No. 7
Old No. 7
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Photograph Information Photographer's Comments
Challenge: Trains & Railroads (Advanced Editing IV)
Collection: Portfolio
Camera: Canon PowerShot S3 IS
Location: Oakland, California, USA
Date: Oct 22, 2006
Aperture: 3.5
ISO: 200
Shutter: 1/6
Galleries: Vintage, Transportation
Date Uploaded: Oct 22, 2006

 One of the 5"/ft-scale (15-inch track) steam locomotives operated by the Redwood Valley Railroad Co. in Tilden Regional Park, on the border between Berkeley and Oakland.

I like old steam trains, but it's hard to get a good shot of them in the low-light conditions of this redwood-filled valley. I've tried shooting this engine once before, I think for a "Smoke" challenge.

-Noise-reduction with PictureCooler
-Created mask for area behind engine (trees and ground)
-Blurred masked background
-RGB Curve
-Resize for DPC
-Crop/rotate
-USM at 16%/64 dia/TH = 0
-USM at 88%/0.8 dia/TH = 5
-SaveAs JPEG at quality 7/10 = 140kb

Statistics
Place: 62 out of 196
Avg (all users): 5.8670
Avg (commenters): 7.5833
Avg (participants): 5.7379
Avg (non-participants): 5.9826
Views since voting: 1514
Views during voting: 347
Votes: 218
Comments: 14
Favorites: 2 (view)

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AuthorThread
 03/22/2012 11:36:03 PM
Awesome subject! That thing was a labor of love. Your photo brings out the best in it too. Thanks for sharing.
  Photographer found comment helpful.
 10/30/2006 12:39:09 AM
Originally posted by 777STAN:
I say it should be Old #9. It would be Old #10, except that the focus is a little too complex for my taste. ;)

You seem to be the only one to notice the blurred background ... good eye! : )

FWIW on the print image I have tried to make the effect a little less pronounced, and added matching blurring through the windows and out the back of the cab, which I didn't bother with for the entry.

I am especially happy with (and surprised by) all the comments on the sharpness and clarity, as this was a handheld shot at an extremely slow 1/6-second shutter speed, and I have a disk full of slightly blurry train shots to show that that this was perhaps as much luck as skill.

Thanks for all the comments and my best score in a while!
 Comments Made During the Challenge
10/29/2006 09:58:09 PM
I like the detail on this shot. The cropping seems a bit tight, but I don't know that it affects the overall impact. Even though this is "Old No. 7" I think I may need to give it an 8.
  Photographer found comment helpful.
 10/29/2006 12:10:52 PM
Good tight composition and exposure.
  Photographer found comment helpful.
 10/29/2006 10:21:29 AM
Impressively clean and crisp vs. most other challenge entries.
  Photographer found comment helpful.
 10/27/2006 10:04:21 AM
Good detail.
  Photographer found comment helpful.
 10/25/2006 05:03:06 PM
Great perspective
  Photographer found comment helpful.
 10/24/2006 10:44:35 AM
I like the way you've worked to begin to isolate the subject. I feel, however, that there's too much going on in the image as a whole for me to know where to focus my attention. Several ideas yank my eyes around, the "7," the fire, the light on the cab, and then the lovely "S" curve of the pipes emerges...
  Photographer found comment helpful.
 10/24/2006 09:47:01 AM
I say it should be Old #9. It would be Old #10, except that the focus is a little too complex for my taste. ;)
  Photographer found comment helpful.
 10/23/2006 08:19:46 PM
Very crisp and sharp.
  Photographer found comment helpful.
 10/23/2006 04:16:22 PM
Meets Challenge - 2
Creativity - 2
Technical Stuff - 2
Overall Appeal - 2
Biased Wow - 1
Total = 9
  Photographer found comment helpful.
 10/23/2006 01:17:32 PM
Very nice.
  Photographer found comment helpful.
 10/23/2006 10:22:35 AM
There must have been some interesting close up shots available on this engine. 7.
  Photographer found comment helpful.
 10/23/2006 12:36:27 AM
great detail and nice light...perhaps a little tight on the crop
  Photographer found comment helpful.


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