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*** April 2026 Image & Video Thread ***

A great piece of railway infrastructure!
Indeed it is. I must get back and find a better location to photograph it in its entirety.
 
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Here is another photo from last weekend taken in dim light. The train was moving so I couldn't really drop the shutter speed any more.

I nearly didn't bother processing this one given how noisy it appeared, but DxO's Deep Prime XD3 does an amazing job of cleaning up images. The first shot is a screen grab from DxO PhotoLab, the second is the processed photo.

Screenshot 2026-04-05 at 9.49.21 am-1.png


P1013656_DxO-L.jpg
 
Really. I haven't had a chance to use XD3 yet but this is an impressive shot.
Thanks Charles. It's the first time I've tried XD3. I was expecting it to take some time to process but the M5 MacBook Pro did it quickly.
 
A change of transport modes for me. Today it's buses! Z04 Carrot

These photos are from a visit to the Sydney Bus Museum. All photos shot with the S9 with Sigma 35mm and Lumix 18-40mm lenses.

US-made Ruggles chasis (manufactured in 1924) with a locally made timber framed and panelled body.
P1001718_DxO-L.jpg


A pair of AEC Regent III double-deckers from 1947
P1001723_DxO-L.jpg


A semi-trailer bus from the mid-1940s
P1001731_DxO-L.jpg


Top deck of the Leyland Atlantean double-decker
P1001745_DxO-L.jpg
 
A change of transport modes for me. Today it's buses! Z04 Carrot

These photos are from a visit to the Sydney Bus Museum. All photos shot with the S9 with Sigma 35mm and Lumix 18-40mm lenses.

US-made Ruggles chasis (manufactured in 1924) with a locally made timber framed and panelled body.
View attachment 17083

A pair of AEC Regent III double-deckers from 1947
View attachment 17084

A semi-trailer bus from the mid-1940s
View attachment 17085

Top deck of the Leyland Atlantean double-decker
View attachment 17086
A, the days when we make stuff in the UK! Nice shots.
 
I read the Wikipedia article on this. The stats are amazing:

- 1.16km long
- 82 piers
- 30 million bricks, most fired on-site
- Built in 13 months by entirely manual labour - 560 workers and 120 horses

There is a huge project underway now in the UK to build a new railway (HS2) between London and Birmingham (goodness knows why). The cost is eyewatering - a completion cost now estimated at over £100bn and still climbing. At only 141 miles, it's approaching £1bn per mile making it the most expensive railway track in the world. There are 50 new viaducts being constructed, the longest of which is 3.4 km long (Colne Valley Viaduct). That's taken 4.5 years to build with thousands of workers, plus a lot of very heavy equipment to help. So much for progress!
 
I read the Wikipedia article on this. The stats are amazing:

- 1.16km long
- 82 piers
- 30 million bricks, most fired on-site
- Built in 13 months by entirely manual labour - 560 workers and 120 horses
Yes, I am frequently amazed by the engineering achievements of railway infrastructure from many decades ago when so much was done by manual work. And the millions of bricks produced and transported there! It really is amazing.

There is a huge project underway now in the UK to build a new railway (HS2) between London and Birmingham (goodness knows why). The cost is eyewatering - a completion cost now estimated at over £100bn and still climbing. At only 141 miles, it's approaching £1bn per mile making it the most expensive railway track in the world. There are 50 new viaducts being constructed, the longest of which is 3.4 km long (Colne Valley Viaduct). That's taken 4.5 years to build with thousands of workers, plus a lot of very heavy equipment to help. So much for progress!
I am always happy to hear about new rail lines being built but the cost these days is extreme despite the fact that there is a significant amount of automation involved. There is an inland rail project underway in Australia to connect Melbourne with Brisbane which is long overdue, but the cost is ridiculous.
 
After talking about the OM Zuiko 24/2.8 this past week, I realized it'd been too long since I used it, so I spent yesterday afternoon shooting exclusively with it.


20260404-SDIM0086 by Travis Butler, on Flickr
Sigma fp, OM Zuiko 24/2.8


20260404-SDIM0096 by Travis Butler, on Flickr
For Pete!


20260404-SDIM0103 by Travis Butler, on Flickr

Once, there were Winsteads all over the metro area. Today, there are just two. ;_;


20260404-SDIM0120 by Travis Butler, on Flickr

I'm not sure if this was anything before it was a hotel; reviews speak of oddly-shaped rooms. It appears to be closed now, but there are reviews as recently as January of last year.


20260404-SDIM0135 by Travis Butler, on Flickr

And this communal house had a fire sometime in the not-too-distant past.


20260404-SDIM0142 by Travis Butler, on Flickr

At least this is a happier story. It opened as the Katz Drugstore about 90 years ago, and went through several ownership changes before closing as an Osco Drug in 2006. It sat mostly vacant for years before finally getting bought for redevelopment in 2021. After an initial surge of work that saw the interior torn out and the building left as a shell, it again sat idle for years.


20221119-P1000546 by Travis Butler, on Flickr
Lumix S5, MD Rokkor-X 50/1.4

But now, it looks like the work is finally almost done.


20260404-SDIM0144 by Travis Butler, on Flickr
 
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