Union Pacific 489 - We Can Handle It

One of my favorite locations for a back drop at the DMRRC is a bit hard to get to.  Setup for these shots is from an access point in the middle of the set.  That's the easy part.  Getting to the access point is not the easy point.  There are low points to crawl around.  Once you can get there, the effort is worth it.
I was lucky enough to get an interesting set of engines in front of the station house.  I wasn't stacking at this point, going with single shot.  To get a clear shot, I was going with 1/80 second on a 35 mm lens.  I could have gone slower, maybe down to 1/50 second, but I needed to be sure.  I wanted to get some DOF, with speed considerations I went with f/6.3.  That put the ISO up around 5k.

Getting a focus point is critical.  With critters and humans, go for the eyes.  For me, with the trains, it is the train number placard above the cab windows.  if I can get the focus on that, the rest will take care of itself.  It's even tougher if the placard is backlit, which is not the case here.  Usually with the model trains, if the numbers are lit, the train has a chance of moving.  Usually.  Anyway, getting the placard sharp is critical.
Here's the focus point:

I did get it where it needed to be.  Good start.
The original image needs a lot of help.  As I mentioned before, I was taking this from an access point and hand holding the camera.  It's not exactly level.  I was just happy there wasn't any evidence of camera shake.

The weathering on these units is really good.  Engines look used.  Realism.
This looks good on the monitor as a screen saver.