How I shot Falcons Lookout
While it’s sometimes possible to just arrive beside the track, wait for a train, and off you go, I more often than not put a fair bit of planning into my photographs. (I have also stood in snow in Canada at -6 Celsius waiting and hoping for hours for little reward)!
For a few years, I’d looked across at the Melbourne to Ballarat railway line through this section near a rock face known as Falcons Lookout, wondering if brief glimpse of the Ironbark Gully Bridge might be worth trying to do something about, but wasn’t sure if it was even feasible.
After helping friends move house last year, returning from Ballarat I had the good fortune to spot a train travelling through this section, and thought yes, I’m going to be able to do something.
Planning the shot
A bit of Google Earth research showed it was just over 4km from the freeway to the railway, and digging deeper, looking at lens sizes, a 400mm zoom (which I didn’t have) was effectively the same as a 8x pair of binoculars (which I did have)!
Dragging out the binoculars, and having a practice locally as we were back in lockdown showed it was a reasonable option. All I had to do was wait for Covid restrictions to lift, an interesting train, hire a lens, and hope the weather was ok. It was a long term plan, I’d waited a couple of years already, so no rush.
Restrictions lifted, and with a few steam loco driver training runs to Ballarat planned, I looked at the train times, and where the light would be coming from to see if it was a suitable time of year for the shot using an App called PhotoPils.
A great little App, it allows you to drop a pin where you want to shoot from, and see where the light will land - it also gives sun and moon rise and set, and altitudes.
A Photopils screen shot, the arrow pointing from where I was shooting, to the bridge itself.
Next was the lens.
I started looking at lens hire. The cost of the lens I wanted to hire for a few days (and had always wanted to add to my collection) wasn’t too bad, but after a little shopping around I went and actually bought it outright the afternoon before the trip was going to run!
My lens of choice was a Canon 100-400 F4.5-5.6 IS II. It certainly gave the reach I needed, plus the flexibility of overlapping with my 24-105mm lens.
It’s a very nice piece of gear, super sharp, the only drawback being it’s rather heavy!
Shot time!
We headed out leaving plenty of time to scope out exactly where I wanted to get the best angle, and were lucky enough to have a couple of Vline passenger trains to practice on.
There was a northerly wind blowing, so pushing the smoke away from the train, but also making it a little difficult to hold everything steady.
It’s not a problem from a shake perspective, the lens and camera have fantastic image stabilisation, it was holding my composition where I wanted it - I had decided against using a tripod so I wasn’t locked into one position.
Right on time, the train appeared climbing into the flatter section of Bank Box Loop, where trains can pass, so I took a couple of shots, one of which is below.
Leaving Bank Box, the train then enters into a bushland section, before with only a little notice, crossing the bridge.
I ended up taking five photos as the train approached, crossed, and headed back into the bush, but as usual, there’s one that stands out from the others.
The Image has ended up in two magazines, Railway Digest, and as a centre spread in Newsrail.
I hope you’ve enjoyed reading about how I took the photo, and it’s given you some appreciation to some of the effort that goes into getting them.
Regards,
Scott