Greetings, The next Quarterly St. Louis Area Railroad Photographer's Slide Show will be held here in St. Louis on February, 7th 1998. Please contact me for more information if you are interested in attending. This show happens on the first Saturday of every third month, and we've been doing this for over three years, so it's easy to figure when the upcoming shows will be.
I updated the SPORRS web site 'Shot Of The Month' for January. From 110 SPORRS List subscribers, I received six votes on five images. The one with two votes is now the Shot Of The Month. Because it's my site, I don't vote. We will need to get a larger quantity of subscriber votes to continue the 'Shot Of The Month' feature next month. See the web site Image Info Section on the bottom of the SPORRS Home Page for more info on this: http://www.anet-stl.com/acphotog/sporrs/index.html#imageinfo For the record, as in the previous ten years, I encountered no locked gates on Sherman Hill the end of last month. However, the place is locked up tighter than Fort Knox in the middle of the summer. UP ran plenty of trains, but the congestion that plagues the system is still apparent even in Wyoming. Traffic was moving, but slowly, and delays around North Platte and Cheyenne were noticeable. Lots of SP trailing power out West, some on nearly every train. Too bad units don't need UP cab signals here in Missouri to lead. If you are wondering what happened to the CNW -9s, most seem to be on the point of trains running across the UP Laramie sub. And of course, there are still so many yellow SD40-2s, like little cockroaches... The second most popular unit that UP seems to like to put on the point out there it seems are the 6100 series SD60Ms. Tip: Check your camera for dirt when loading film to avoid film scratches. After two rolls in a row out of the same camera with base side scratches, even when blowing the camera (not the shutter!) out with canned air, you can be sure that a clean pressure plate and film guide rail area is something that I will be thinking about more while loading film outside in the future. If anyone is interested, the image quality and response of the Nikon TC-14E electronic AF 1.4 teleconverter is superb with an internal focus (AF-I or AF-S) telephoto lens. It's just as sharp as the manual TC-14B, however this new 'E' (AF-I) type converter can only be mounted to an AF-I or AF-S type Nikon lens. And it DOES display 'effective' aperture (correct compensated exposure) electronically in the display of a Nikon F5 camera. No more forgetting that you were one stop off (or 2 with the 2X) with your exposure on your hand held light meter because of the teleconverter attached. If anyone has the Nikon TC-20E 2X converter and has looked carefully at their slides with it, I'd like to hear from you. AF update: After more experience with the newest technology Nikon AF (i.e. latest internal focus big glass), I have concluded that this latest gear is no worse than the EOS AF system. Both work equally well (with the known limitations), and it appears that the location(s) of the AF sensors in the viewfinder is the biggest hurdle yet to overcome in AF development. There just simply isn't enough of them (5) in any camera yet, and they are not far enough apart to avoid a compromise in composition for my purposes in many situations. And I continue to play with modern AF technology. If the current stuff works great for you, I'm happy for you, but I know where your trains (and your depth of field) are in your viewfinder. Not usually where mine are. :) Regards, Dave Dave Cohen Photographer [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.anet-stl.com/acphotog -> SPORRS: Serious Photographers of Railroad Related Subjects -> Web Site: http://www.anet-stl.com/acphotog/sporrs
