Bernie Ente touched on a little-discussed topic in his post about rapid-recycling strobes to reduce the ambient light during a night multiple-flash exposure of a train in a railroad yard.
Twenty-five years ago the ambient light was not as much a problem, even in color photos, but with today's massive floodlighting of rail yards with mercury vapor, sodium vapor and who-knows-what vapor lighting, the ambient light is an unwanted guest during lengthy exposures at night while firing your strobes onto the subject. If possible, shoot with two people, having one operate the cameras while the other throws light. The camera operator then can cover the lenses with black cardboard between flash exposures while the shutters remain open. I have done this for 25 years for the best results at eliminating unwanted ambient light. Only problem is that it takes two to tango. In fact, I have Kevin Keefe well-trained at holding black cardboard during my flash photos. On one particularly difficult shot of the rear of a MKT business car, I fired just two flash bulbs, but had 3 or 4 people lying on the car's floor so that they could turn on and off different lights for differing times inside the car, on the rear platform, inside the drumhead, marker lights, and red Mars light on the car's roof. Poor Kevin flipped the one piece of cardboard covering two cameras about a dozen times while I orchestrated the many different lighting exposures that were needed to obtain just one total exposure on film. And, of course, I exposed several frames of slides in two cameras with a 1/2-stop bracket in f/stops. He had to watch the cameras so that he did not bump them during all of these gesticulations, which is very difficult physically with a lot of hand-cramping, etc. He deserves a medal for his fortitude in helping me get this photo, which would have been impossible without his expert help. The photo was perfect in my estimation, with warm interior lighting on wood paneling showing through the rear windows, the LIFE magazine cover photo of President Harry S Truman (who rode in the car during a campaign sweep through Texas) showing on the interior wall, well lit exterior, and red Mars light and red markers tying into the red TRAINS logo which was to appear in the black dead space above the car. This is my all-time personal favorite train photo. But TRAINS opted for the alternate view of this car for their cover because the car owner's son--who was standing on the stepbox beside the car in every shot--was not smiling enough in the photo! I was crushed, as this was a grabber cover shot if I ever saw one. I only wish that they could have doctored his face with Adobe PhotoShop so that this photo could have been used. Oh, well... Years ago I started playing with a solenoid-operated shutter that I could place in front of my camera lens on a separate light stand so that it would be independent of the camera and not impart any motion to the camera while opening and closing during the long time required to run around and fire strobes or bulbs. I used a radio trigger to trip the shutter open and closed between the firing of my flashes while I worked alone in the rail yard. However, ambient radio signals from the trains also tripped the solenoid shutter without me knowing it, so during tests sometimes I fired the strobes with the solenoid shutter in the closed position. Of course, then I got to say the old photographers' lament, "Gee, it worked OK back at the studio!" Then my job got transferred to Baltimore and I just never had the time to perfect this rig. With today's 4-channel radio slaves and the advent of infrared slave triggers, this rig might work extremely well without unwanted radio signals. If anyone goes into production on this idea for sale to railfans, remember that you heard it here first, and remember to cut me into your action! John B. --> SPORRS: Serious Photographers of Railroad Related Subjects X-Mozilla-Status: 0001 Content-Length: 2215
