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March looks like being packed with train rides for me. I enjoy the look of steam locos and the windows-down mode of travel. There is always something interesting to shoot around heritage railways and abandoned stations.
The 2015 Festival of Steam at Thirlmere, south of Sydney, featured the newly restored 6029 Garratt, the largest steam locomotive in Australia. Unprecedented crowds had the volunteers scurrying about all day providing train rides behind a variety of locos. We arrived by ancient NSW Government bus from Tahmoor station, avoiding horrendous traffic snarls and parking problems.
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The five hectare Trainworks Railway Museum is an astonishing collection of NSW locos, rolling stock and railway memorabilia. The few hours that my son and I spent there were not enough to explore all the exhibits. Thirlmere is definitely on my list of places to revisit.
Film for the day was Portra 800 at EI 400. Camera was an N75 with a Sigma 24-105mm. Some levelling and cropping was done with DxO software from the 20mp scans.
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Surprisingly few white balance changes were needed despite the mixture of artificial lighting and skylights indoors. The auto metering of the N75 did not miss a shot all day.
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The flexibility of the Sigma 24-105mm is apparent here. The first shot is at 24mm and shows a royal coat of arms on the rear wall of the museum. The second shot was at 105mm, taken a few steps to the left, and later cropped. Both exposures were around 1/8 sec, demonstrating truly excellent lens stabilisation technology.
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I am very pleased with the way Portra 800 handles difficult lighting and its unobtrusive grain structure. There was a time not so long ago when ISO 800 film was not a first choice for general photography but Kodak now provides excellent quality at a genuinely high speed compared to other film stocks.
I exposed at +1.0 compensation (EI 400) with matrix metering for convenience and the ability to grab shots instantly. On calmer days with more careful exposure I shoot Portra 800 at +0.5 (EI 560) with similar results. Moderate overexposure makes no difference in the final prints. With thoughtful exposure for the darkest areas in which you want some detail and colour fidelity this film can indeed be shot at the full ISO 800.
The main attraction was of course the mighty Garrett, on the rails again after a Herculean restoration by the Canberra Rail Museum. I recall seeing the loco before work began. It hardly seemed possible at the time that this engine could be bought back to full operation. It is now certainly the pride of the NSW heritage railways.
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