I took a series of pics of my 1/72 scale HMS Victory as it sits in a case in my home.These pics were taken in a darkened room through a plexiglass case using nothing more than my camera on auto,a flashlight on a stand and a sheet of kleenex for a filter.By playing with the light and camera angles I could get specific shots of areas of the ship that I could get no other way.Here is my fancy set up:
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 !
John,
With all your expertise, why aren't you writing a book or article for Kalmbach, instead of putting all your time and effort into this posting?
ENJOY !
Mobilman44
Living in southeast Texas, formerly modeling the "postwar" Santa Fe and Illinois Central
mobilman44 John, With all your expertise, why aren't you writing a book or article for Kalmbach, instead of putting all your time and effort into this posting?
Great idea, but would probably be best suited to Kalmbach's "Fine Scale Modeler" magazine, as the photos have very little to do with model railroading.
Bob Boudreau
CANADA
Visit my model railroad photography website: http://sites.google.com/site/railphotog/
Yes, you are so right!
This is a model railroading site !
mobilman44 Yes, you are so right! This is a model railroading site !
LOL
I don't think that John is listening or reading, just posting.
mobilman44, you raise a good point. This is a model railroading site, not a photography forum.
With all due respect to John Reid, I am surprised that the forum administrators remain silent on this point.
Maybe I can start a thread on my latest project - - - rebuilding my 12 year old cedar deck.
Rich
Alton Junction
Here is another little composition that was made up of different elements temporarily brought together.The Model T on the left is actually a diecast and the one on the right a plastic kit.I enjoy doing relaxed poses where a lot of movement is not really expected.A driver catching a few rays of spring sunshine while waiting for the mail to arrive.The signs above the window gives us only a few hints about the storyline.The open door into another room ,the corner,the car pointing inwards all help to add depth to the piece.The colors of green,red , gray and various earth tones harmonize well with each other.The pic before this one is of the various parts required for one overhead light assembly.I had to make about 30 of them for this one diorama and wire them all together just for my own picture taking purposes.It will never be lit this way again.I will however send a copy of the pics to the museum to show them how it was originally intended to look when I built it.
Richotrain,
Do you get the feeling you (and I) are being ignored ?????
mobilman44,
Maybe so by John, but I am certain that the LION is reading this thread. The LION doesn't like dioramas. The LION doesn't even like photography. Him only likes trains.
To paraphrase a famous movie quote, "SHOW ME THE TRAINS" !!!!!
Dioramas and LIONS, OHHH MYYYYY!!!!
Michael
CEO- Mile-HI-RailroadPrototype: D&RGW Moffat Line 1989
Lighting my way.I believe that if you want old style lighting that looks like old style lighting in miniature, then that is exactly what you must try to reproduce, old style lighting in a miniature setting.Yes wiring,bulbs and fixtures just like they used to be.For my own work I have gone far out of my way to try to reproduce that look even though if as it turns out now it was only for my camera.My dioramas were never built for museum purposes although in the end it turned out that way.I have always had a thing for creating moods or atmosphere using lighting ,I don't know why but it has always been there for as long as I can remember.About fifteen years ago when I first looked into the subject for lighting my first diorama I relied upon the RR guys at my hobby store for basic information so I used RR type locomotive headlights for bulbs.I had no idea about the doll house scene at that time and their much easier ways of doing things,so I came up with my own handmade wiring plan.It was a nightmare but suffice it to say I did get it working using a train transformer as a rheostat.I never took many pics back then so I won't even bother trying to explain how it worked.The next diorama was simplicity itself .I took two five watt Christmas lights for internal lighting and lit the rest from outside using my hand held ,handy dandy reading light to create a barn like type setting.(see pic)The third diorama I went back to overhead lighting using fixtures,about 35 or so in all.Each one hand made using Radio Shack type wiring and doll house type bulbs this time but again using a train transformer which of course was overloaded so it had the nasty habit of turning all the lights out after about ten minutes.For my picture taking purposes I really didn't need them all on at once anyway.The fourth diorama,an outdoor scene has no lighting at all so far although I am planning a little lighting in the individual rooms behind the brick facade probably using LEDs.For the most part I am happy with the way it turned out for my own picture taking purposes, which is really why I did it this way in the first place.If I had used todays more modern ways of doing things I just don't think that it would have ended up looking the same somehow.
In the spirit of "a picture is worth a thousand words"I have started a new album in my photobucket site titled "Lighting" for those interested in how easy it is to obtain different lighting effects when using my method for taking pictures.Remember all it takes is a hand held camera with a stabilized lens and set on auto , a hand held light with changeable bulbs and most importantly your own individual creativity.Have fun !
Sample pic.
You know sometimes ignorance can serve you well in the end.Looking back now I realize that I would never have gone to all the trouble of using RR or old dollhouse lighting methods if I had known at the time that there were a lot easier ways of doing things.But I am convinced that LED's etc... just wouldn't have given me the same results.I would have lit my stuff for the museum and not for the camera, no question about it.It is a lot like film making once it is shot and in the can that's it.It is the image that is important not the diorama or movie set.It is all about capturing a moment in time.Things may constantly change but( for awhile )the camera has stopped time.Sure in time the image will get old and deteriorate and go the way of all things but for a brief instant time appears to have stopped.Therein lies the magic !
Seems like this thread should be renamed: "How to _endlessly_ stroke your own ego at little cost to you."
If the picture is not train related, it should not be posted. Most of the photo techniques are too dark and too confined to be of any use in typical model railroad photography.
Not pertinent, not interesting. And most not very good photos. Everything looks like it was taken in a cave. Poor lighting and poor focus is laziness pretending to be technique.
The dioramas are OK, but not train related. Why is the thread allowed to continue?
Gee ! why don't you tell us how you really feel ! Cheers! John.
How do you keep spiders out of your dioramas?
I have a few big (1/5 & 1/6 Scale) RC type Float Planes, & in NE Iowa they are Spiders tenament! They are in the interior, the retracts, cowlings, & wireways.. What do you do to keep 'pests' away from your models?
I like how the lighting works in these photos....I'm working on an HO diorama that I can use with my N scale layout to 'compress' some of my imagery...have you done something of the sort?
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/
Chad try:
RAID !!!
Hi bc ! I think that you mean forced perspective or using different scales in a pic to add depth .I have done this only on a very limited basis like mixing 1/16th with 1/18th scales and on rare occasion 1/16th with 1/24.I usually use an upshot(low angle) for this and try to stay away from anything that has well known dimensions such as figures,doors and windows etc... Cheers! John.
In this example the coach is 1/24 and the background is 1/16th scale.
I think we have had enough "photography hints for one thread.
Many have their own way and own lighting that makes the best pic for them and their camera. SOme have only a point and shoot camera, you seem to have a higher quality camera and is higher price,i am sure. Develping or storage memory cards ain't cheap either.
One guy posted a thread awhile back asking what was wrong with his pic he had submitted to MRR magazine for the photo shoots in the back that got returned as "unusable". We helped him improve his pic so he could resubmit it with our suggestions correcting the image. Still doesn't mean Kalmbach will accept it.
Maybe it is time for the moderators to lock this thread?
-G .
Just my thoughts, ideas, opinions and experiences. Others may vary.
HO and N Scale.
After long and careful thought, they have convinced me. I have come to the conclusion that they are right. The aliens did it.
galaxy Many have their own way and own lighting that makes the best pic for them and their camera. SOme have only a point and shoot camera, you seem to have a higher quality camera and is higher price,i am sure. Develping or storage memory cards ain't cheap either.
Point-and-shoots in the right environment are just as useable as the more expensive models, unless you have one that's incapable of focusing or exposing properly. Lighting is the most important part - a lot of the problems you'll find shooting model railroads with a point-and-shoot is that while it looks bright to your eye, it's actually quite dark and cameras have to work extra hard (high ISO) to expose the image properly, causing a huge loss in quality. Give your point-and-shoot plenty of light and your results will improve drastically. I purchased a pair of 300-watt equivalent CFLs (for shooting portraits - halogen and incandescent give off too much heat) and use those while shooting my layout. They give off plenty of light and properly color-corrected, you can't tell they're CFLs. Example
The other problem is depth of field, since their lenses only go up to maybe f/5.6 at the maximum, whereas non-retractable (larger) separate lenses on DSLRs stop down to f/22 or more. This is easily corrected by any of the focus composite softwares out there. (CombineZM is a free one)
As for the price of memory cards...that's really not a big deal anymore. Pick up a 1GB memory card for a few bucks and you're set to go unless you shoot a LOT of photos at once. Just get in the habit of dumping it to your computer every once in a while (at least once a week for me, but I shoot a lot) so it doesn't fill up.
Just busting some myths here as a part-time professional photographer who shoots professionally with a Canon DSLR and for fun with a Panasonic point-and-shoot...
This thread serves as a point of discussion about photographing/imaging small scale items to make them look reasonably life-like. With the advent of freeware image stacking programmes, such as CombineZP, there should be few problems with depth of focus. It makes the imaging process much more labour-intensive, but the dramatic improvements make the scenery and close-up objects pop with vastly improved DoF.
One thing the newer CMOS small-sized chips suffer from is under-exposure which leads to noisy images. Users of such cameras will have to get used to either better lighting techniques or leave the shutter open a bit longer.
Crandell