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How to Photograph Your Models at little cost to you. Locked

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Posted by Stourbridge Lion on Saturday, November 12, 2011 3:25 PM

JohnReid

OK new thread !

Given all the Quote's of Quote's showing things might be getting a bit warm and John is basically call this topic closed then maybe it's time to call this one done...

Cowboy

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Posted by bigpianoguy on Saturday, November 12, 2011 1:58 PM

One last bit on the subject of miniature photography.

My studies have shown me that an oft-overlooked effect is that of varying the light patterns and sources within the same shot.The human eye, marvellous creation that it is, compensates for SO much, but the camera, doesn't. There's very rarely a truly sunny day; there's always car exhaust, contrails, the next front moving in, in the air, that makes subtle but important changes in a scene, even a scale foot from your focus. Ever tried to smooth over a rough spot in the sky by using cut & paste with your paint program? The computer will spot those variations in sky colors & make it a losing exercise!

And people are never completely still, even dead. They're breathing, moving to what the other guy is saying, got sore feet, listening to a tune in their head...but always moving...so a shadow might get blurred...and the one thing they're ALWAYS making - is dust.

 

Just my two cents...

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Posted by JohnReid on Saturday, November 12, 2011 1:26 PM

OK new thread !

Once Upon a time.........

My photobucket:

http://s6.photobucket.com/albums/y250/JohnReid/

I am a man of few words but lots of pics

 

I quit drinking beer because the download was taking longer than the upload !

 

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Posted by maxman on Saturday, November 12, 2011 1:25 PM

richhotrain

Well, my point in making that statement

Rich, I wasn't questioning your point at all.  My point was that the original title of this thread concerned low cost model photography.  I think most of that was sort of covered on the first one or two pages.

Just my opinion, of course.

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Posted by richhotrain on Saturday, November 12, 2011 12:35 PM

maxman

 richhotrain:

I realize that we have now gotten as far from the hobby of model railroading as we can possibly get,

 

And haven't we gotten pretty far away from the original title of this thread?

Well, my point in making that statement was that I was acknowledging getting off the topic of model railroading by asking how one manages to put an entire book on a camera since the OP mentioned that.  I find the topic interesting because if there is an easy way to do it, and if it makes more sense than alternative methods such as scanning, there maybe there is some merit to it.

Rich

Alton Junction

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Posted by richhotrain on Saturday, November 12, 2011 12:26 PM

JohnReid

 richhotrain:

I realize that we have now gotten as far from the hobby of model railroading as we can possibly get, but my curiosity has now gotten the best of me.

How in the world do you copy an entire book onto your camera?  What do you do?  Photograph each and every page?

Rich

 

Hi Rich ! thank you for your response.

 

I would however disagree with your misguided statement only intended to be as negative as possible.Last time I checked backdrops and building structures (facades) are used all the time in the construction of model RR"s layouts.

I would stifle my curiosity if it were me responding and just change the channel.

Please rephrase your post and I would be glad to respond.

Thank you ! Cheers! John

John,

That response of yours surprised me greatly.  Seems pretty rude.

What is there to rephrase?   I was merely asking how you manage to copy an entire book into your camera.  There was nothing intended to be negative. 

Rich

Alton Junction

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Posted by maxman on Saturday, November 12, 2011 12:16 PM

richhotrain

I realize that we have now gotten as far from the hobby of model railroading as we can possibly get,

And haven't we gotten pretty far away from the original title of this thread?

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Posted by BATMAN on Saturday, November 12, 2011 11:50 AM

There is nothing like being able to take photo's of technical manuals including schematics with your phone and sending them to your buddies phone. It is very convenient when he is up in the Rockies 700 Km away and has an unexpected problem. Scanners are very slow. A camera is "a click" and your done.

I was at a train show and a guy took off the shell of a Loco to show me how he wired a decoder in. Two clicks with the camera and I have that picture that's worth a thousand word manual.Laugh

BrentCowboy

Brent

"All of the world's problems are the result of the difference between how we think and how the world works."

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Posted by JohnReid on Saturday, November 12, 2011 11:11 AM

blownout cylinder

 

 richhotrain:

 

 

 blownout cylinder:

 

 

 richhotrain:

I realize that we have now gotten as far from the hobby of model railroading as we can possibly get, but my curiosity has now gotten the best of me.

How in the world do you copy an entire book onto your camera?  What do you do?  Photograph each and every page?

Rich

 

 

I've done it..mind I had a big 4Gb card to do it on..only took about 57Mb though.

 

 

But, why would you want to?

 

 

Why? Because it was there...http://www.kvraudio.com/forum/images/smiles/icon_hihi.gif

Actually, long story short..no scanner available where I was ....

Now that is an excellent reason isn't it.Just one among many I would say.Thank you for that !

Once Upon a time.........

My photobucket:

http://s6.photobucket.com/albums/y250/JohnReid/

I am a man of few words but lots of pics

 

I quit drinking beer because the download was taking longer than the upload !

 

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Posted by JohnReid on Saturday, November 12, 2011 11:05 AM

richhotrain

 

 blownout cylinder:

 

 

 richhotrain:

I realize that we have now gotten as far from the hobby of model railroading as we can possibly get, but my curiosity has now gotten the best of me.

How in the world do you copy an entire book onto your camera?  What do you do?  Photograph each and every page?

Rich

Why not ! it is just another option among many.

 

 

I've done it..mind I had a big 4Gb card to do it on..only took about 57Mb though.

 

 

But, why would you want to?

Once Upon a time.........

My photobucket:

http://s6.photobucket.com/albums/y250/JohnReid/

I am a man of few words but lots of pics

 

I quit drinking beer because the download was taking longer than the upload !

 

Moderator
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Posted by blownout cylinder on Saturday, November 12, 2011 11:04 AM

richhotrain

 

 blownout cylinder:

 

 

 richhotrain:

I realize that we have now gotten as far from the hobby of model railroading as we can possibly get, but my curiosity has now gotten the best of me.

How in the world do you copy an entire book onto your camera?  What do you do?  Photograph each and every page?

Rich

 

 

I've done it..mind I had a big 4Gb card to do it on..only took about 57Mb though.

 

 

But, why would you want to?

Why? Because it was there...

Actually, long story short..no scanner available where I was ....

Any argument carried far enough will end up in Semantics--Hartz's law of rhetoric Emerald. Leemer and Southern The route of the Sceptre Express Barry

I just started my blog site...more stuff to come...

http://modeltrainswithmusic.blogspot.ca/

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Posted by JohnReid on Saturday, November 12, 2011 11:03 AM

BroadwayLion

If you are copying a book, why use the camera. Scan them into .pdf format on your scanner or printer. But before you do that, no matter how you do it there is the issue of copyrights. Do you have the right to copy that book or work. If it is in the public domain, have at it. If it is for your own personal use it is likely to be ok. Beyond that, find someone who plays a lawyer on TV to advise you.

ROAR

I only copy my own stuff when posting to the forums.On the one and only occasion that I copied a complete book I was given written permission to do so by the author.

Using a camera is only one option of many.Spy's used to do it all the time,remember those old movies ?

Once Upon a time.........

My photobucket:

http://s6.photobucket.com/albums/y250/JohnReid/

I am a man of few words but lots of pics

 

I quit drinking beer because the download was taking longer than the upload !

 

  • Member since
    August 2010
  • From: Montreal Canada
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Posted by JohnReid on Saturday, November 12, 2011 10:54 AM

blownout cylinder

 

 richhotrain:

 

I realize that we have now gotten as far from the hobby of model railroading as we can possibly get, but my curiosity has now gotten the best of me.

How in the world do you copy an entire book onto your camera?  What do you do?  Photograph each and every page?

Rich

 

 

I've done it..mind I had a big 4Gb card to do it on..only took about 57Mb though.

Then again...

http://i464.photobucket.com/albums/rr1/blownoutcylinder/055-1.jpg

Part of an aerial photograph taken of the Beachville ON quarry site from around 1948...

I would turn off the flash though.

 

Once Upon a time.........

My photobucket:

http://s6.photobucket.com/albums/y250/JohnReid/

I am a man of few words but lots of pics

 

I quit drinking beer because the download was taking longer than the upload !

 

  • Member since
    August 2010
  • From: Montreal Canada
  • 1,048 posts
Posted by JohnReid on Saturday, November 12, 2011 10:50 AM

richhotrain

I realize that we have now gotten as far from the hobby of model railroading as we can possibly get, but my curiosity has now gotten the best of me.

How in the world do you copy an entire book onto your camera?  What do you do?  Photograph each and every page?

Rich

Hi Rich ! thank you for your response.

 

I would however disagree with your misguided statement only intended to be as negative as possible.Last time I checked backdrops and building structures (facades) are used all the time in the construction of model RR"s layouts.

I would stifle my curiosity if it were me responding and just change the channel.

Please rephrase your post and I would be glad to respond.

Thank you ! Cheers! John

Once Upon a time.........

My photobucket:

http://s6.photobucket.com/albums/y250/JohnReid/

I am a man of few words but lots of pics

 

I quit drinking beer because the download was taking longer than the upload !

 

  • Member since
    September 2004
  • From: Dearborn Station
  • 24,281 posts
Posted by richhotrain on Saturday, November 12, 2011 10:03 AM

blownout cylinder

 richhotrain:

I realize that we have now gotten as far from the hobby of model railroading as we can possibly get, but my curiosity has now gotten the best of me.

How in the world do you copy an entire book onto your camera?  What do you do?  Photograph each and every page?

Rich

 

I've done it..mind I had a big 4Gb card to do it on..only took about 57Mb though.

But, why would you want to?

Alton Junction

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Posted by BroadwayLion on Saturday, November 12, 2011 9:31 AM

If you are copying a book, why use the camera. Scan them into .pdf format on your scanner or printer. But before you do that, no matter how you do it there is the issue of copyrights. Do you have the right to copy that book or work. If it is in the public domain, have at it. If it is for your own personal use it is likely to be ok. Beyond that, find someone who plays a lawyer on TV to advise you.

ROAR

The Route of the Broadway Lion The Largest Subway Layout in North Dakota.

Here there be cats.                                LIONS with CAMERAS

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Posted by blownout cylinder on Saturday, November 12, 2011 9:24 AM

richhotrain

I realize that we have now gotten as far from the hobby of model railroading as we can possibly get, but my curiosity has now gotten the best of me.

How in the world do you copy an entire book onto your camera?  What do you do?  Photograph each and every page?

Rich

I've done it..mind I had a big 4Gb card to do it on..only took about 57Mb though.

Then again...

Part of an aerial photograph taken of the Beachville ON quarry site from around 1948...

Any argument carried far enough will end up in Semantics--Hartz's law of rhetoric Emerald. Leemer and Southern The route of the Sceptre Express Barry

I just started my blog site...more stuff to come...

http://modeltrainswithmusic.blogspot.ca/

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Posted by mobilman44 on Saturday, November 12, 2011 9:16 AM

Ummm, I find its much easier to carry the book than to try to write on my little bitty Nikon...........

ENJOY  !

 

Mobilman44

 

Living in southeast Texas, formerly modeling the "postwar" Santa Fe and Illinois Central 

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Posted by richhotrain on Saturday, November 12, 2011 8:38 AM

I realize that we have now gotten as far from the hobby of model railroading as we can possibly get, but my curiosity has now gotten the best of me.

How in the world do you copy an entire book onto your camera?  What do you do?  Photograph each and every page?

Rich

Alton Junction

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  • From: Montreal Canada
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Posted by JohnReid on Saturday, November 12, 2011 8:17 AM


Note: first a little of that boring text that I talked about !
Saving Picture References.

For those who may want to permanently  save pics or text ,what I have done in the past is just simply save it to my camera.Simply darken the room,set the camera on auto and use a little of the telescopic function to remove any distortion .The quality of the pic will suffer a bit but for our purposes here it will be sufficient. You could of course always save it to your computer the normal way.
Why bother ? you may want it for future reference and I often lose my pics on photobucket when I change anything.Example,whole albums can be lost if I change album names or when switching pics between albums.It is also easy to do and cheap and saves room on your computer.I have in the past copied whole books this way.
It is also sometimes nice to have a hard copy of an example of what you  are trying to do right there at your workbench.Sometimes changing them to B & W also helps to get away from all the color distraction as well,especially when looking for shapes and patterns.

Once Upon a time.........

My photobucket:

http://s6.photobucket.com/albums/y250/JohnReid/

I am a man of few words but lots of pics

 

I quit drinking beer because the download was taking longer than the upload !

 

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    August 2010
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Posted by JohnReid on Friday, November 11, 2011 4:14 PM

Lest We Forget

Once Upon a time.........

My photobucket:

http://s6.photobucket.com/albums/y250/JohnReid/

I am a man of few words but lots of pics

 

I quit drinking beer because the download was taking longer than the upload !

 

  • Member since
    August 2010
  • From: Montreal Canada
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Posted by JohnReid on Friday, November 11, 2011 7:01 AM

Building your own facades or backdrops are really easy  things to do using materials that are usually  available to most of us.They are quite cheap to build and require only hand tools to make.

Glue,cardboard,tongue depressors , coffee stir sticks or small scale scale  lumber is all you need.The core could be plywood ,cardboard or foamboard or whatever, as long as it is easy to cut,and does not warp with the use of water based materials like carpenters glue(white or yellow) and acrylic paint.

You will need a flat surface to work on and lots of #11 Xacto blades (changed on a regular basis) and your basic core material to start with.You will want to be able to easily change your design as you go along ,if you wish to.Save all cutouts from doors or windows etc... to use as perfect patches if required.I just usually tape any mistakes over using the patches,because these  basic shapes only act as a easily worked flexible core for any brick or wood sheathing.The actual strength will be in the sheathing material you put on or your basic framing.

Before starting I will usually make a small scale complete structure,walls and roof etc ,using cardboard or thick paper.It doesn't have to be to any exact scale as it is only something that is used to stimulate your imagination or work out a final composition.If you want to build it to scale then that is OK too as you then will be able to take direct measurements for the scaled up version.

I will be using lots of pics to illustrate how I do things and as little text as possible ,I find long texts can be boring .

Well here goes ! I hope that you guys enjoy it.The thread will probably end up a little long so please just bypass it if you don't want to read it.I have noticed that other threads here have been years in the making and some are even quite narrow in scope ,so please be patient with me.

If the moderators agree I  could break it up into monthly parts, part #1,part#2 etc.....

Thank you . Cheers ! John.

 

Once Upon a time.........

My photobucket:

http://s6.photobucket.com/albums/y250/JohnReid/

I am a man of few words but lots of pics

 

I quit drinking beer because the download was taking longer than the upload !

 

  • Member since
    August 2010
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Posted by JohnReid on Friday, November 11, 2011 6:08 AM

Building Facades  As Structures For Your RR Layouts Or As Backdrops For Your Pics.

 

 

I have decided that instead of opening another thread I will just add this stuff to this one.

The old  Victorian row house facade above is a good example of what I mean.So I will use it as an example.

 

Once Upon a time.........

My photobucket:

http://s6.photobucket.com/albums/y250/JohnReid/

I am a man of few words but lots of pics

 

I quit drinking beer because the download was taking longer than the upload !

 

  • Member since
    August 2010
  • From: Montreal Canada
  • 1,048 posts
Posted by JohnReid on Tuesday, November 8, 2011 6:15 PM

Once Upon a time.........

My photobucket:

http://s6.photobucket.com/albums/y250/JohnReid/

I am a man of few words but lots of pics

 

I quit drinking beer because the download was taking longer than the upload !

 

  • Member since
    August 2010
  • From: Montreal Canada
  • 1,048 posts
Posted by JohnReid on Tuesday, November 8, 2011 3:42 PM

This pic was taken using the facade of my latest airplane diorama.By positioning the camera just right (no tracks) I can create a whole different scene and use different subject matter as the primary subject,in this case a locomotive that I am building for a "Far West" diorama that I have underway at this time.The locomotive is 1/24 scale and the facade is 1/16th.

For those who may be interested,I was told yesterday the the cases were already built and are awaiting their glass tops and all three should be on display before Christmas.The fourth one is finished but as you can see but I am using it now for photography purposes before sending it along too.

Once Upon a time.........

My photobucket:

http://s6.photobucket.com/albums/y250/JohnReid/

I am a man of few words but lots of pics

 

I quit drinking beer because the download was taking longer than the upload !

 

  • Member since
    August 2010
  • From: Montreal Canada
  • 1,048 posts
Posted by JohnReid on Tuesday, November 8, 2011 2:43 PM

Once Upon a time.........

My photobucket:

http://s6.photobucket.com/albums/y250/JohnReid/

I am a man of few words but lots of pics

 

I quit drinking beer because the download was taking longer than the upload !

 

  • Member since
    September 2004
  • From: Dearborn Station
  • 24,281 posts
Posted by richhotrain on Tuesday, November 8, 2011 10:06 AM

BroadwayLion

 

I did not realize that we were that fussy about photos posted here.  

BL,

We're not.

But you were the one who said that the photo you posted was rejected as out of focus and that you now had a new camera with a high quality focus. 

That kind of begs the question, why not photograph the same scene with the new camera?

Rich

Alton Junction

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Posted by BroadwayLion on Tuesday, November 8, 2011 9:51 AM

richhotrain

 

 BroadwayLion:

 

LION wishes he could make good photographs, but now him has a better camera, and several professional processing programs. Not the best equipment, mind you, but it will take pictures.

The LION has been busy with many things around the layout, but sooner or later, I'll get around to cleaning up the room a bit and taking some pictures. For now, here is one of my favorites. MR did not accept it for a Trackside photo, they said I needed better focus, but now with a better camera and with Helicon Focus, I should be able to do just that.

 

 

If you now have a better camera with a Helicon Focus, why not just take another photo, this time with better focus, instead of posting the photo that Trackside rejected as out of focus?

Rich

 

I did not realize that we were that fussy about photos posted here. I have many things else to do before I can set up a new photo shoot up there, it is not a high priority, but I thought people would like to see how far the project has gotten and the sorts of photographs that I am thinking of. And besides, I value the feedback and suggestions before I set up the next shoot.

 

Jerry (the Leopard) says hello.

The Route of the Broadway Lion The Largest Subway Layout in North Dakota.

Here there be cats.                                LIONS with CAMERAS

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Posted by JohnReid on Tuesday, November 8, 2011 7:31 AM

I like it just like it is ! Nice composition and very creative idea.Out of focus ? I call it setting a realistic mood.It could be fog or more likely smog or even a way of focusing attention on the main subject matter.

Once Upon a time.........

My photobucket:

http://s6.photobucket.com/albums/y250/JohnReid/

I am a man of few words but lots of pics

 

I quit drinking beer because the download was taking longer than the upload !

 

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