What Shutter Speed

[Jedicolin]

I usually photograph steam trains on the South Devon Railway which travel no faster than 20mph. I usually shoot at around 1/400 F8

I want to start shooting trains on the mainline, around 60mph. What sort of shutter speed and F number should I be aiming for?

Any help much appreciated, thank you.

[Woolley]

Re: What Shutter Speed

Difficult to be specific, but if they're anything like photographing racing cars, fast enough to make the vehicle sharp but slow enough to show movement in the wheels. For slower cars that's usually around 1/100th I'd hazard a guess at something similar for a train. Also depends on whether you're panning. If not, you'll need to increase that as the train will be moving through the shot.

Your aperture depends on the focal length of the lens and how much you want to appear in focus. Again for a car, f/5.6 is usually about right to get the whole thing in focus and the background out, for a train you're probably going to want something a lot smaller, but then you'll also probably going to be using a wider angle lens, so f/8 to f/11 should be in with a shout?

[colin C]

Re: What Shutter Speed

As I don't shoot race cars and/or propeller aircraft often enough, I usually start at around 1/250sec to start with, just to guarantee a few keepers. Then, as my panning rythm improves, I drop it to 1/125sec, then 1/60sec for quite a while. If I am really in the groove and I am comfortable that I have plenty of keepers, I may then go down to 1/30sec or even slower for some more artistic (mostly bin fodder) shots.

Colin