Railroad Sunset

I saw some sunset over train tracks and this one caught my eye. I found this train track while driving and with suncalc.org, I could plan a day where the sun would align with the train tracks.

I discovered this last year but I missed the opportunity to do it so this year, I really wanted to try it. This took me a couple of tries because the walk from where I can park to the train tracks is like 10-15 min. I missed the sunset because it took longer than anticipated.

This shot was with my Fujifilm X-T3 + Fujinon XF55-200mm. This is out of camera raw with Lightroom presets (Adobe Color):

I tried taking a 2 shot HDR but it didn't blend well. I might try again next year with the bracketing option on the camera with 3 shots. This is the best I could do.

If you noticed, the sun is nowhere near the railroad because those shots were even harsher. It was really difficult to make it look natural without having the crazy HDR look.

I lifted the shadows quite a bit with the global and with local adjustments. There's a lot of work to make it look alright. Lowering the dehazed and increase clarity (a bit) helped as well.

200mm 1/30sec F/13 ISO 160

I'm not totally happy with this and I might try it again next year but I'm happy I tried. At least I have something to work off. I think this is important and can motivate you to keep trying.