what's going on guys back at it again today and really excited because we're
off on our second train journey and actually our last train journey in Sri
Lanka we're heading to Ella it's supposed to be pretty awesome but don't
expect super smooth footage because I forgot to charge the gimbal so going
handheld on today's episode yeah heading towards Ella let's go
seriously I'll take a train any day and these Sri Lankan trains rank about top
in the world in terms of both fun and photogenic-ness our journey from Kandy
is a bit of a grueling one though six hours on bumpy tracks to the tea covered
hills to Ella.
back on the train back hanging outdoors back loving this it's just so much fun
on these trains.... Oh, trees!
it's just so much fun it's so much fun and it's just
nice to have this like freedom to be able to do this to just be able to enjoy
the drive enjoy the train ride well just having the wind in your face and yeah
just blowing through it love it
Yvon Chuinard once wrote something like a real adventure is something that
you might not come back alive from and certainly not the same person
so while riding the rails in Sri Lanka might not be as hardcore as a real
adventure it is liberating there's just something about being able to hang out
the door of a moving train as it clunks along through an unfamiliar country the
wind on your face as cliche as it sounds just has this magical effect on our
happiness doesn't so taking images from the trains a
challenge because it's bumpy and there's not that many handles to hang on to
there's one out here but there's not that many to be honest so yeah it's been
a bit of a battle I do think I got a photo or two though there was a lady
that just got off the train that was just gorgeous and her walking along the
train tracks I think it's a really cool photo I'm stoked with that
but I'm gonna carry on this video once we get to Ella which is just down the
tracks and maybe try to photograph this train
you know from off the train
a little late we rolled into Ella grab some well-deserved sleep and headed out
for some more train photography this time
from a stationary footing okay it's tomorrow and just before sunset and yeah
we're hiking for a little bit to a place called nine arches bridge which is this
classic bridge Vista photograph of yeah the train tracks that that approach here
in ella. it's a definitely an iconic location it's hopefully a location where
you can make kind of an iconic hero image that kind of tells the story of
the whole region so yeah yeah that's where we're hiking now and hopefully we
can get some light
okay so we made it to the bridge which is right down there and one it's
really warm out and two I'm realizing that it would definitely be best from a
drone but because of the terrorist attack that happened I guess about a
month ago maybe two months ago there's still a red zone on the security in in
Sri Lanka and there's no drones allowed during that time period so I'm behaving
myself even though I don't want to and not flying drones instead and we're
gonna walk down the tracks find a nice composition I hope a train comes by
nine arches bridge which is also sometimes called the bridge in the sky
is an architectural marvel built in 1923 in full anticipation of the dozens of
instagramers that would flock to it each day it's 91 metres long and hovers 25
meters above the ground. side note: no instagramers or Instagram models were
hurt in the making of this vlog.
okay we're gonna have a quick walk across the
the tracks and hope the train doesn't run this over I'm just trying to figure
out what we want out of this the sun's directly backlit if you're on that side
but it's hazy enough that you might get some nice like orange color sky rate at
sunset or we're gonna go check it out on the other side and see if it's gonna
look nice with all this really really softly lit you know tea and stuff like
that actually I'm seeing a couple monks in an umbrella above the tea I'm gonna
pull out the lens and photograph that I think
okay so I don't think that works just because a bunch of tourists just started
walking behind the monks play there's a cool-looking scene and yeah almost
across the bridge now what I saying before is you kind of got to decide what
we want we get to decide if we want to shoot into the backlight and get that
hazy potentially golden sky or if we want this scene lit up by the last bit
of light you're gonna get really nice soft light on everything and it really
make the colors pop so we should gonna make a decision the bad news it was so
hot that I lost a gallon of sweat the good news my stems cleared plenty of
space for me to set up my tripod nary a single Instagram model dared stand in my
orbit or that strange sense of fashion yes those are flamingo shorts and yellow
Kodak socks
we're all set up and I yeah got the shot we like definitely better frontlet
rather than backlit we're basically just set up waiting for the Train the trains
supposed to leave at 5:30 and we're just set up on our composition at the 24 to
70 we've got a 1.2 grad a 4 stop medium grad on the top and then yeah my shutter
speeds a little bit different than normal because we're trying to freeze
the frame or freeze the Train so it's iso 400 1 / 2 hundredths more or less
and then f 5.6 so now it's the waiting game
the trains going across my two second timer was on yeah
okay so I think we actually hatched egg nailed it on the other side got the
train going through and it's actually going away from us but getting the tail
end of the train it actually looks like it's coming towards us so it works and
now we're waiting on the other side because there might be a second train
that comes right after sunset and we're shooting into the back light which is
super hazy and a little bit bland but I think it could still work I'm gonna do
something different this time I went really fast on the shutter speed last
time this time I'm gonna go down to like a half second shutter speed and
hopefully get a little bit of motion blur in the train so hopefully the train
comes
okay so the trains about half an hour late so it's too dark I'm doing about a
two and a half second exposure okay the train was late
like actually 20 minutes or 30 minutes late so it was supposed to come by
exactly at sunset but it came back basically a dark so I was a bit of a
mission to get the right exposure in the right mood I decided to go with like a
two and a half second exposure which I didn't think was ideal I wanted about a
half second or maybe a second but in the end I liked the two and a half second
exposure it's also a so 1,600 which again really is an ideal you'd want it
to be as low as possible but them's the breaks
Keats did like a 25 second exposure so totally different go check out his
Instagram you want to see what he came up with and yeah that's it for today's
episode trains and train photography here in Sri Lanka I guess I'll see you
guys tomorrow as I think we're gonna go chasing waterfalls don't go chase in
yeah sorry peace
you