Andy Williams railway photos

Technical info

The photos were taken with:

35mm format Various 35mm cameras and Kodachrome 64 transparancy film.
35mm format Minolta X-300 camera and Fujichrome or Fuji Sensia 100 transparancy film.
645 format Mamiya 645 camera and Fuji Provia 100 or 100F transparency film.
Digital Canon EOS-300D camera with EF-S 18-55mm lens (until April 2004).
Canon EOS-300D camera with Tamron SP AF 28-75mm XR Di (May 2004 to April 2006).
Canon EOS-350D camera with Tamron SP AF 28-75mm XR Di (May 2006 to October 2006).
Canon EOS-350D camera with Canon 24-105L (November 2006 onwards)
Canon EOS-350D camera with Canon 24-105L or 70-200L (September 2008 onwards)

In most cases the Fuji film was processed by Fuji (at Leamington). The K64 was obviously processed by Kodak.

The 645 transparencies were scanned using an Epson 3200 flatbed scanner. Some of the 35mm transparencies were originally scanned using the Epson 3200, but all the larger ones (greater than 700px across) have been done using a Minolta Scan Dual III. The Minolta film scanner was acquired because satisfactory scans of 35mm slides couldn't be obtained from the flatbed.

RAW conversion of the digital images used to be done with RawShooter Essentials, but these days I prefer Adobe Camera Raw, as built into Photoshop Elements 4. Post-processing of images was mostly done with various versions of Adobe Photoshop Elements, but I also occasionally use the Gimp, and Neat Image. The latter is a noise reduction tool which is superb at removing grain from scans of 35mm transparancies.

The sound recordings were made using a Sony MZ-R700 minidisc and an ECM-MS907 microphone. The more recent ones were post-processed using Audacity.

It's been several years since it was possible to park yourself near any reasonably busy British railway line and be fairly certain that something interesting would pass by - unless multiple-units are your thing (and they're not mine). These days the good stuff is so thin on the ground that you need to know where it is. So here I should take a moment to express my thanks to various friends and acquaintances who share information when they have it, and also to the posters on various railway gen lists for their generosity. Access to good information is at least as important as cameras and software, and probably more so, when trying to take the sort of photographs found on this site. So thanks again to all who have helped, knowingly or not.