Digital model photography

[drgwcs]

While browsing through Wal Mart today, I was looking at some of the cheaper digital cameras from Digital Concepts. Has anyone tried one of these for model photography? [?]I was looking at their 3.1 Megapixal and 4.1 models. Also will these convert from Jpeg to Tiff format? I guess when I'm bealing with photography Im still an analog guy in a digital world.[%-)][banghead] Heck I even prefer manual focus to autofocus.
Thanks for any help
Jim C.

[Anonymous]

A problem with cheaper cameras, digital or film, is that they have no depth of field, so photos taken up close tend to be either all blurry or everything 1/2" in front of or behind the focal plane is blurred.

Converting the image format is the job of the PC - cameras generally output a JPEG (.jpg) file.

3 - 4 megapixels is fine for 5x6 or smaller images. You might see a little graininess if you were to enlarge the iamges to 8x10 or 11x14 - depends on the image, lighting, etc.

[Medina1128]

Most of the better (re: more expensive) have manual settings that allow you to set your f-stop manually. Just like in the analog world, it helps to have a tripod.

[rolleiman]

Just like with film, the thing that makes one digital better than another is the size of the sensor (think 35mm vs 4x5 inch film). It doesn't matter how many megapixels they cram onto the sensor. The JPEG output of the camera is a function Of the camera. Converting back to tiff, or even saving in tiff, gains you very little if anything and more often than not, is a waste of memory space. What you Really want if you want a file you can do the most with, is a camera that will save in RAW format. These formats are unique to the camera. In other words, Nikon RAW does not equal Canon RAW does not equal Sony RAW, etc, though they all give you the same capability.

Back to sensor size... Most digicams (the type you are talking about) have a sensor about the size of the size of your pinky fingernail or smaller. A dSLR (Digital SLR) has a sensor about 60% of the size of a 35mm frame. I bring that up to point out that a 6Mp digicam with a 1/1.8 or 1/2.5 sensor will not equal the image quality of a 6Mp dSLR, and the sensor size is the biggest reason for that. The glass in front has something to do with it as well but not as much as you may think.

Here are a few websites that you can read until your eyes bleed reading up on the subject..

http://www.stevesforums.com/forums/

http://www.dpreview.com/forums/

http://www.steves-digicams.com/techcorner/tc_index.html

http://www.dpforums.com/forum/

Edit. Forgot this one..

http://www.photoxels.com/tutorial_dof.html

[CNJ831]

Jim - As has already been pointed out, most current, relatively inexpensive (under $300), digital cameras are a poor choice for any serious model railroad photography. Even toward the higher end of pricing ($500-$600), speaking as one who has done model railroad photography for many years, they still can not fully equal a regular old 35mm film camera in image quality.

That said, if you simply wi***o take images of your layout to show friends, with no intent whatever toward any publication of same, you can get away reasonably well with something like a 3Mp camera. It will likely lack even a "reasonable" DOF but will produce "nice" pictures for general consumption. If you want something that will approach the quality of what is typically seen in the older Track Side Photos (pre-digital days) in MR, or are looking to have your own efforts published, then expect to go for at least a 6Mp camera having manual controls on aperture setting, a very small minimum f-stop, and an extended exposure range.

CNJ831

[hminky]

I use a refurbished Konica Minolta Z20 that I purchased for under $200 on Ebay.



It does closeup well, excuse me for the bad decal.



It does normal model pictures well



Adding Helicon depth of field software. I used to use a Fuji s60z with 3.i megs and have had pictures in magazines.

Model Railroader is the only magazine that requires the use of gazillion pixel pictures. Maybe that is why they are having a decline in content.

Just a thought
Harold

[MisterBeasley]

We have a Sony Cybershot, 5 megapixels, that we got a few years back. In general, it takes great snapshot-quality pictures, but as other have mentioned, it lacks the control needed for professional-level photography. One very noticeable shortcoming is the lack of a tripod mount. We usually leave it it 1 megapixel mode, so that we don't fill up the memory stick too fast.

When I take layout pictures, I usually avoid the flash. At the close range needed for model photography, the flash over-lights the whole photo, which leads to unnatural contrast conditions. Yes, you can correct some of these digitally on your computer later on, but I find that shooting with natural light works better. (Many cameras come with all the software you'll need, by the way.) I also usually use the "timer" feature, so that the camera isn't being disturbed by my finger on the button while it's actually taking the picture. I get much more stable images that way.

[jeffrey-wimberly]

If your version of Microsoft Windows came with the Kodak Imaging software (mine did) you can use it to convert jpeg to tiff.

[ereimer]

i had a look at walmart.com and couldn't find any cameras made by Digital Concepts . could you give us a link so we can see what you're asking about ?

as pointed out above , similar to film cameras , the more control you have over focus , f stop , etc. the better your results will be in non-snapshot situations like model photography

digital cameras are a high tech item , and like computers , plasma tvs , dvd players , etc , prices tend to fall and features go up . a camera that was $1000 5 years ago has probably been replaced by a better model at half the price today

it looks to me from walmart's site that there are some cameras in the $250 -$500 range that have the features needed to take a good model photo . anything below that seems unlikely , and anything below $100 just won't do the job . if the Digital Concepts cameras are in the last category you could get one and try it , but personally i don't believe in buying something i'm going to have to replace in a year because i've outgrown it's capabilities , i'd rather just buy the better product now and spend the year growing into it

[ProtoWeathering]

They say a poor workman blames his tools.

All taken with a 1.3 mp Olympus D360L. About $59 right now, if you can find one.

[jeffrey-wimberly]

QUOTE: They say a poor workman blames his tools.

Well said. All my layout photos were taken with an Aiptek VGA pencam. That includes the pic at the bottom of this post. It work as a digital camara, a webcam and a video flash recorder. Cost? $50 at Wal-mart, if you can find them.

[Anonymous]

You can use any camera to take photos of anything. What you want to do with the images afterwards would determine if the cheap Wal-Mart cameras would be suitable. For e-mail and web use, I imagine they would do fine. My first camera was a 1.3MP HP camera, and I had a great time with it. I worked within its limitations. Many of the photos on my website were taken with it, although I have much better cameras these days. Cheap cameras won't do for printed publications most of the time, but no one was asking about this aspect of photos.

Bob Boudreau

[CNJ831]

QUOTE: Originally posted by Neutrino

They say a poor workman blames his tools.

All taken with a 1.3 mp Olympus D360L. About $59 right now, if you can find one.

Yes. But most will folks admit that there are very decided limitations to cheap cameras, film or digital. By example, just look at the extremely poor depth of field your photos present with the camera you are using.

CNJ831

[Anonymous]

There's a great program out there that will take numerous photos of the same image that have different depth of field's and combine them. That way you can have a cheaper camera, take 10 of the same shot with slightly different depth of field (changing where the focus point it) and the program combines it.

It's called Helicon Focus. It's been discussed on this site before and many people like it.
http://heliconfilter.com/pages/focus_overview.html

There's numerous examples on their site. I believe that it's $30 or so to purchase, but there is a trial download.

Kevin

[Anonymous]

QUOTE: Originally posted by chewie8han

There's a great program out there that will take numerous photos of the same image that have different depth of field's and combine them. That way you can have a cheaper camera, take 10 of the same shot with slightly different depth of field (changing where the focus point it) and the program combines it.

It appears to be a great program BUT you need a camera that you can manually focus from the near foreground to the background. It combines all of the in focus points into one image, stacks them together.

You cannot do this with cheap cameras. By cheap I mean the toy-like ones in Wal-Mart.

Bob Boudreau

[wctransfer]

Meh, my camera cost around 279, and it does great for layout photography, least it does to me. Im shooting a Olympus FE-110. 5 MP's.
Heres a few samples.


Alec

[steamage]

I spent my loot and bought a Nikon 5400 digital camera, this was one of my better investments. I have used it for articles in MR and other publications Now I'm experimenting with its video for doing I-Movies of my layout. This opens up a whole new fun part of model railroad hobby now. The movies look like the ones that I did with an 8mm movie camera of trains that I had photographed in the 60s. I can now railfan on my layout with my 1960s time machine,

Don't be cheep when buying a camera, you get what you pay for.

[Anonymous]

I had a Walmart 3 megapixel Concord Camera that was digital. It had a macro mode that worked well for me within 9 inches of the target. I dropped the camera the other day and ruined the battery cover on the bottom. So it had to be retired for want of a working battery cover.

I have my eye on the Canon Rebel and similar models that feature pretty good lens capacity and zoom. I would not want the images to get much bigger than 4 megapixels and would want to retain the macro for getting in close.

I did go to walmart the other day and there were no Concords availible, however there were a bunch of cameras in that 80 to 100 dollar price range which I think will be adequate but may not have what I need so I am moving on to the bigger cameras myself.

my two cents.

[Anonymous]

My HP camera can set the manual focus on it. It's fairly many steps. It's defnitely not a really expensive camera either.

Kevin