My affinity with locomotives is a direct result of early experiences travelling on these magnificant machines, most of which took place in my native land Bangladesh. I vividly remember the thrills of waking up early to catch a train; gazing out the window to see gentle rice fields streached to horizons; countless rivers with plenty of activities and the lively platforms. I also remember seeing with interest locomotive engines bearing Canada's flag hinting at its birthplace. So it was with pleasure I discovered one of Toronto Railway Heritage Centre's feature site known as John Street Roundhouse located right beside my workplace. Recently I had the opportunity to bring my camera on a brief visit to capture some of the engines on display. The Roundhouse is currently closed for the season and slated to reopen in Spring of 2011. While the crew works on restoring artefectss, there are a few engines sitting on the tracks including one on turntable. And the best part is its all free!
The day was windy with sun hiding behind gray clouds. There wasn't enough ambient lighting for single exposures to capture the vibrant engine colors and I didn't have a tripod with me. So I opted for handheld bracketed exposures with hope of turning them into HDR. As it takes time to process these multi image exposures I'll post the results in installments.
Today's HDR image is that of CLC Whitcomb 50 Ton Centre Cab Switcher on Turntable. I dropped on my knees and inserted camera through an opening in railing to get a low perspective shot. Setting aparture at f4.0 and exposure brackets from -2 to +2 I held the camera as firmly as I could. The resulting images seemed to captured most of the lights. Here's the middle or "anchor" image at 0 exposure, not exactly what I had in mind.
I merged and tonemapped the 3 RAW pictures in Photomatix taking care not to over saturate. This resulting image was almost what I visualized the final result to be. Since there was no ghosting I didn't need original images to mix with tonemapped one. I just opened it in Photoshop and applied Nik's "Pro Contrast" filter which brought out colors on the engine body and intensified rust colors. I also clened up noise with Imagenomic Noiseware. Here is the final product:
Hope you come back for the next installation of this series featuring yet another locomative engine in HDR.
The day was windy with sun hiding behind gray clouds. There wasn't enough ambient lighting for single exposures to capture the vibrant engine colors and I didn't have a tripod with me. So I opted for handheld bracketed exposures with hope of turning them into HDR. As it takes time to process these multi image exposures I'll post the results in installments.
Today's HDR image is that of CLC Whitcomb 50 Ton Centre Cab Switcher on Turntable. I dropped on my knees and inserted camera through an opening in railing to get a low perspective shot. Setting aparture at f4.0 and exposure brackets from -2 to +2 I held the camera as firmly as I could. The resulting images seemed to captured most of the lights. Here's the middle or "anchor" image at 0 exposure, not exactly what I had in mind.
I merged and tonemapped the 3 RAW pictures in Photomatix taking care not to over saturate. This resulting image was almost what I visualized the final result to be. Since there was no ghosting I didn't need original images to mix with tonemapped one. I just opened it in Photoshop and applied Nik's "Pro Contrast" filter which brought out colors on the engine body and intensified rust colors. I also clened up noise with Imagenomic Noiseware. Here is the final product:
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| Final product. |
Hope you come back for the next installation of this series featuring yet another locomative engine in HDR.
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