The LNER Encyclopedia

This one is on a sunny saturday at Colton.I was sat down when i took this!A better zoom is required.Iam working on that!!This shot is my wallpaper on my pc.

A good tip to get the shot framed as you really want is to identify an 'aiming point' in advance. Fire the shutter when the front of the engine comes level with your chosen point. This aiming point could be either a point on the track itself, or for example at the location you show here where the track is fairly uniform and featureless I would have used the perimeter fence posts as aiming points and fired the shutter somewhere just after the second fence post from the right.

Many well-known 'old school' photographers used this technique. I still use it myself whenever possible. It does depend on minimal delay in the response from your camera's shutter, but that is something you get to know through using your camera. For me it has always been a good way of getting the desired result with a 'single-shot' camera. without the wastage of film that came in with the advent of motor drives, or the 'modern laziness' that follows from using digital cameras in continuous shooting mode.

Also make use of any other convenient trains that come past before the one you really want to photograph to practice on getting the timing right. Hope these tips are helpful to you.

It's a nice shot, though on that frame I think you'd do better with a faster shutter speed rather than more zoom. As Flamingo has suggested, photos can be cropped, but enlarging the frame that you shot is a little tricky...

Re shooting positions, whatever works for you - if I am sitting down, then unless I am sitting on a very steep slope I prefer to have my back against a tree or fencepost to avoid shake. Sometimes I have actually laid down to take a picture - that usually draws amused looks and sometimes snide comments from any other photographers around, but I have the last laugh when my frames come out sharply focussed and theirs are slightly blurred from camera shake...

It's certainly a lot easier now to get a shake-free shot what with the advent of image stabilisation that's built into even fairly inexpensive point-and-shoot cameras. And here's a little gadget I use instead of having to lug around a full size tripod:

http://joby.com/gorillapod

This is a really useful little tool. You can wrap it around or hang it practically anywhere.

Now that's a tool!!Cheers fellas,the camera i'm getting next month has stabilisation on both digital,and optical.It also has different shooting modes,one of which is "sports".That should improve things-it's also a 12x zoom!!

G'Day Gents
There you go, you framed that one better, good on ya,
manna