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Making a movie

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  • Member since
    July 2009
  • From: lavale, md
  • 4,678 posts
Posted by gregc on Tuesday, July 19, 2016 5:33 PM

Blind Bruce
Which lens would you select to photograph a train coming at you with the camera level with the track? Wide angle or telephoto?

I use a zoom to frame the picture instead of me moving closer or farther back. 

Using an adjustable telephoto lens and being far away allows you to reduce the zoom, keeping the train in frame.   Being able to slowly (i.e. manually) change the zoom would be helpful.

 

greg - Philadelphia & Reading / Reading

  • Member since
    July 2006
  • From: Chamberlain, ME
  • 5,084 posts
Posted by G Paine on Tuesday, July 19, 2016 3:15 PM

Does your camera have interchangable lenses or a permamently attached zoom lens?

George In Midcoast Maine, 'bout halfway up the Rockland branch 

  • Member since
    August 2006
  • From: Franconia, NH
  • 3,130 posts
Posted by dstarr on Tuesday, July 19, 2016 3:05 PM

Normal or wide angle.  Telephoto lens have less depth of field and they foreshorten the image.  You can tell when a picture is taken with a tele lens, the foreshortening effect is a dead giveaway.  I used a low end point-n-shoot on a tripod to make some decent videos of moving HO trains.  A DSLR should work even better. 

  • Member since
    May 2010
  • 179 posts
Posted by LIRRs on Monday, July 18, 2016 4:15 PM

Hi.

If you are using a DSLR with a full frame sensor try using a 90mm or 100mm Macro lens.  You just need to ensure that you have adequate lighting to enable you to stop down the lens for a broad depth of field even though your focal point is narrow.

All the best.

Joe F

  • Member since
    January 2004
  • From: Canada, eh?
  • 13,375 posts
Posted by doctorwayne on Monday, July 18, 2016 2:24 PM

Blind Bruce
...Which lens would you select to photograph a train coming at you with the camera level with the track? Wide angle or telephoto?

I'd guess that either would work, as long as your camera will automatically re-focus as the train gets nearer.
Telephoto and wide-angle lenses both distort the image, or at least parts of it.
Since you're not wasting any film, as you would in the pre-digital age, why not simply shoot a few clips using various settings, and see which gives you the results that you want?

Wayne 

  • Member since
    April 2003
  • 305,205 posts
Posted by Anonymous on Monday, July 18, 2016 9:59 AM

That depends on what kind of a view you would like to capture. If you would like to have something close to the perspective of a HO scale figure watching the train go by, I´d suggest to use a telephoto lens equalling about 75mm lens in the good old 35mm photography.

  • Member since
    January 2005
  • From: Winnipeg Canada
  • 1,637 posts
Making a movie
Posted by Blind Bruce on Monday, July 18, 2016 9:53 AM

I have a new DSLR that has a movie function. I haven't taken the time to really check it out so I am asking your opinions.

Which lens would you select to photograph a train coming at you with the camera level with the track? Wide angle or telephoto?

73

Bruce in the Peg

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