Building a Flash Unit for "Photographers"

Model Railroader General Discussion (Model Railroader)
1

I have a camera that works

its an old VR35 Ektanar

I was wondering if anyone has tried to use this for the layout

I seen a website the has some info but seems like the flash is something thats useful

If you’re like me, and you’re always looking for something extra to add more

http://www.supervipersystems.com/VargoSpeedway/HO_Tech/Photo_Flashes/photo_flashes.html

2

I haven’t tried it on the layout yet but I have used gutted disposable camera flash units for other purposes (Halloween for example). One does NOT to send the entire throwaway camera to the developer. Most of them open with a simple latch and you can remove the film and send just that away, leaving the camera shell complete with battery and flash unit.

Be very careful when you gut it. There are high voltage low current circuits to drive the stobe and they will bite HARD if you touch the wrong points with the capacitor charged. Best to leave the shell intact except for wiring in a remote switch, and use fiber optic “tubes” off some cheap device to carry the light.

Disclaimer: For trained professionals only, do not attempt at home, matter and anti-matter may react violently, the universe tends toward entropy, etc. etc.

3

You may want to look around garage sales for flash units.

A “modern” flash consists of a flash tube, a capacitor which is charged to around 400V, a charging circuit and power supply (battery). More sophisticated flash units have a sensor with a shut off switch to disconnect the capacitor from the flash when a pre-determined amount of light is received back at the flash unit.

There are only a couple things that generally go wrong with flash units:

  1. The capacitor fails - expensive to replace and not worth it.
  2. Battery contacts corrode; usually due to poor quality plating on the contacts. I have had bad experience with Vivitar flash units in this area.

The Cambron Kangaroo flash is a great unit for MR photos, I have had mine for more than 20 years with no problems, and still use it with my Canon Digital Rebel XT. I do not know if they are still made.

4

Who go through all that get a flashing circuit offline wire up to a person and use a small bright led. I was thinking of this because I have photographers that will be taking pictures of the rail fan trips and trains in general on the layout. I even have a Tracks Ahead crew waiting to be added with video cameras and everything.

5

Here in England, there is a layout called Seabury Town, built by Mike Renwick in O gauge of a fictious English seaside town. I have seen this at exhibitions and it has many animated features with moving people and machinery etc. One of the features is a photographer who lifts his camera to his eye, a flash goes off and a picture appears an the screen (around 9"?) above the backdrop. This is timed to take a picture of visitiors who can see themselves on the screen. Unfortunately, I did not get details of the workings but it was a great talking point!

6

wow that sounds awsome milly

thanks

7

The use of a flash to light a model scene is fine, but for model photography you should not use an on camera flash. Use an off camera flash that is, say, 30 to 45 degrees off perpendicular to the lens axis. This will give much better definition to your photographs. If you don’t have a flash-meter, you will probably need to bracken your shots to get a good exposure. If you’re going to use a film camera for model photography it would be a good idea to check out a good book on photography from the library. Or better still, use a digital camera if you can get your hands on one. That way you can take all the photos you want at no extra cost and save the best.

By the way, that little inset that flashes is really irritating.

8

I think you missed the object of Budliner’s original post…

The website he linked to has information on making sports fans (or anyonw really) “take pictures” of the action in front of them, be it something on a tracetrack, or a soccer game, or anything else that one may take pictures at…

9

You are absolutely right, I missed the point entirely. That’s what I get for not reading the link. It’s obviously doable, but it seems that it would be lot easier to program your DCC locomotive for a Mars Light or Strobe Light, and maybe more entertaining, but maybe not prototypical.

10

hey well I got a few ideas

thanks