Night photo question..

[Ypsi]

So I have a few questions about night photography.

1) my most important question is about setting up lights. This goes to anyone that has had experience with using lights or is a railroader... If I was to set up some of those flood light type lights to take some pictures of the WALLY/ Mi train test run. Of course not facing the cab in any way and on my land (or at least what is considered the boundary between my land and the ROW) but what I was wondering is if this would an in anyway get me in trouble with the police or worse the railroad. My Idea is to borrow 2 or 3 of my neighbors flood lights that they use to light there hockey rink and set them up where I could film and possibly take pictures of the train going away headed west.

2) if I was to set up lights what would be the best setting to attempt to get shots of the train which should be going between 45-60mph. Both coming at me and possibly going away with lights..

Looking for your guys thought because most of you have a lot more experience then me and some have been or are engineers. I do not want to do anything stupid that could get myself in trouble or make the crew of the train angry. If any of you guys think that this is not a good idea I will not do it.

This would be a one time thing if I end up doing it

[Saturnalia]

If you do in fact do it, be sure to give them some "warning flashes", or turn the lights on long before they arrive.

[LSRC]

From what I've heard, most train crews view flashes as the "equivalent of a light being turned on in another room." There doesn't appear to be any real visual danger to the crews, and the crews that I've talked to when doing flash night photography don't seem to have a problem with it. Now, you're talking about using floodlights, which are different, but I wouldn't think that it would be a huge deal to the crews. I would think that crews would be used to trackside floodlights from things such as line-side buildings, but I don't know that for sure. As MQT said, it's best to either have the lights on before the train gets there, or do a test as the train is approaching.

on my land...in anyway get me in trouble with the police or worse the railroad

Probably not. Can't say that for certain, though.

2) if I was to set up lights what would be the best setting to attempt to get shots of the train which should be going between 45-60mph. Both coming at me and possibly going away with lights..

Photo or video? If you're doing photo, good luck. My advice would be to set up the lights in a row, put the camera on a tripod and jack up the ISO.

[J T]

Photo or video? If you're doing photo, good luck. My advice would be to set up the lights in a row, put the camera on a tripod and jack up the ISO.

Max shutter speed for a flash is generally 1/250, right?

[conrailmike]

Photo or video? If you're doing photo, good luck. My advice would be to set up the lights in a row, put the camera on a tripod and jack up the ISO.

Max shutter speed for a flash is generally 1/250, right?

Yep.

[bdconrail29]

Photo or video? If you're doing photo, good luck. My advice would be to set up the lights in a row, put the camera on a tripod and jack up the ISO.

Max shutter speed for a flash is generally 1/250, right?

Unless you have a DSLR and flash that allow high speed flash sync. This drains the batteries pretty hard though. And for many reasons, not as good as just using the max allowable shutter speed under normal conditions. It can be useful to use though in some situations.