How To Reduce Yourself To HO Scale For Taking Pictures
I have always felt that the pictures we take of our model railroads are often taken using camera angles that make our scale models, many of them of amazing precision and accuracy, to look somewhat toylike. Often they appear as though they were taken from an angle or height that if the subjects were 1:1 scale, would nearly impossible for an average railfan photographer to achieve.
The problem, of course, is the camera. A 1:1 scale camera doesn’t fit well in a 1:87 scale scene. So, how to arrange it so that the camera takes the picture from, say, 5 ½ feet (scale) from the ground? The solution lies in the design of many of the lower-priced “point-and-shoot” cameras now on the market.
There are two basic designs of these cameras: One has the lens approximately centered vertically and slightly to the right of center horizontally in a body about 3 ½” x 2 ¼”. See fig. 1. This type often has a lens that extends out from the body when the camera is powered on. The other design has a smaller-appearing lens in a location much further to the right, and just below the top edge of the camera. See fig. 2. The lens on this type of camera does not extend from the camera when the camera is powered up. This is the design we’ll be working with.
In both of these types of cameras, there is an LCD screen on the back of the camera which serves as the viewfinder, and the power switch, shutter and focusing controls are on the top edge of the camera body. Other controls and switches are placed elsewhere, but as these vary from brand to brand, and are irrelevant to this discussion, no further discussion of them is needed.
The point-and-shoot camera I own is a Panasonic Lumix DMC-FP8, but similar cameras
Very informative, Gary. It turns out that my own camera, a Canon Powershot, has its lens more or less low-center on the camera front, so I am able to place the camera quite low and get good shots of the kind you describe. And I agree, the easy shot is the one taken from standing height looking down over the scene. Unfortunately, it doesn’t afford a likely view of a real railroad, so the high angle gives it away…if nothing else does first. Crandell
I usually place my camera somewhere in the scene, focus it, set the aperture to the highest available value and use the self-timer function to trigger it. Works nicely!
My camera has its lens in about the middle of it, so that´s OK. The best position for pictures, however, is at an slightly upward angle, which is very difficult to achieve.
Take a look at DRWAYNE’s pictures, right angles, right lighting, his layout should be in MR sometime instead of some of these “fantasy” layouts they seem to be so fond of. Oh, forgot, he doesn’t use DCC, well, there’s a big strike against him for getting into MR…
That’s a neat idea. Sadly, the image produced by the point and shoot camera is mottled by a poor depth of field. If you can make any manual adjustments, I’ve found that the following tricks can be helpful:
Set the f-stop at it’s highest setting (on a p&s this is usually somewhere between 5 and 8) which gets you the narrowest aperture opening.
Then, set the exposure time between 3 and 5 seconds or thereabouts… this takes a bit of experimentation, but if you can make those adjustments, you can get better depth of field (more of the frame is in focus).
To get the best lighting, you should have adjustable lighting in the train room. I dim my room lighting to about 30%, which combined with the long exposure creates the effect of full lighting. I use DCC to flip on the headlight briefly during the exposure, to avoid it burning in too much.
The net effect is a reasonably low angle (I model N scale, so this is an even greater challenge), with reasonably good depth of field, a natural lighting effect, and an overall good shot. I’ve constructed some areas of my layout with recessed riverbeds and other geographic features (including removable trees) to make room for my considerably chunky Canon S3.
Hope these tips are helpful. You can learn more about using a point and shoot for model photography HERE
Here is another candidate for a layout shoot from the looks of it. Hard to beleive that this is N Scale which makes it even more impressive. This is the type of layouts that I “personally” would like to see.
Sorry to break up the “party”, fellas: Of the three layouts featured in the most recent issue of MR (Dec), DCC is not mentioned in any of them.
Although there are probably more DCC layouts than DC layouts featured in MR these days, does it really matter which system is used?!? I’m primarily drawn to the scene or what the modeler is trying to depict; not what system they use. It’s a personal choice. Unfortunately, you both seem to make it (or take it) more personal.
I will agree with you that I very much enjoy seeing pics of Dr. Wayne’s layout and craftsmanship and would love to see it in MR some day. But…maybe MR doesn’t like Canadians???* Phfff!..You’re sunk, Wayne! [(-D] (You, too, Crandell)
Tom
*For Sheldon’s sake, this sentence is made with tongue thoroughly in cheek
Just for the record I could care less what a person uses to operate their layout, be it DC, DCC, VOODOO, or 12 volt batteries. It’s just become rather obvious that the chances of a layout being featured in the pages of MR these days “appear” to be small if they are not using DCC.
If a person has DCC and likes it my comment is “good for them”, I don’t care one way or the other. It’s a personal choice much like other things in life. I’m also not interested in having my equipment make funny noises or chug little whisps of smoke, but if that’s someone else’s joy in life more power to them.
Again, these are my “opinions”, you have yours and I have mine so let’s respect each others “opinions” whether we agree with them or not.
You’re right on, Lee - and nice work, too. Unfortunately, my Panasonic doesn’t have a direct adjustment for the aperture, which is annoying. I have a DSLR from Canon that will do everything I need, but its size eliminates its use for low-angle from the middle of the scenery. It does work well, however, from a tripod off the edge of the layout, but that limits the scenes to those which work from that position.
Modeling in N-scale does indeed carry some problems when it comes to photography, but if you can work around the depth-of-field problem, a camera with an offset lens, used upside down, such as mine, can be used to eliminate the height problem. The 10-second delay feature which almost all have, can be used to solve the shutter-triggering problem. Simply set the camera for the 10-second delay, place it on the layout to line up the shot, raise the camera slightly to press the shutter button, then put it back down and hold it in position uintil the shutter fires. With N-scale, of course, you wouldn’t need the wood spacer or the trigger arm that you do in HO.
Crandell, I used to have a Canon Powershot, as well, until it died on me. The lens height from the bottom of the camera was about 7 feet (HO) which would be about where a 6-foot guy could hold a camera over his head to shoot (OK, unusual, but hey, I’ve got some pretty strange railfans on the FHN [:D]). And it had good settings for aperture and shutter speed, as well as the usual ISO (film speed) settings. Nice little camera.
If anyone knows of a small (P&S size) camera with apertur adjustment to f20 or more, and a shutter speed which can go to more than 30 seconds, for under US$200 please let me know!
This shot was with the Powershot set directly on the rails, Gary. And so was this one: The second is clearly taken from an apparently tall person, as you stated. Crandell
…Oh, forgot, he doesn’t use DCC, well, there’s a big strike against him for getting into MR…
Maybe we’ll be able to see it sometime in RMC.
Mark
…I would love to see his layout featured in MR - but you may be right, he may fail the “politically correct” test since he does not use DCC.
Sheldon
Sorry to break up the “party”, fellas: Of the three layouts featured in the most recent issue of MR (Dec), DCC is not mentioned in any of them.
Although there are probably more DCC layouts than DC layouts featured in MR these days, does it really matter which system is used?!? I’m primarily drawn to the scene or what the modeler is trying to depict; not what system they use. It’s a personal choice. Unfortunately, you both seem to make it (or take it) more personal.
I will agree with you that I very much enjoy seeing pics of Dr. Wayne’s layout and craftsmanship and would love to see it in MR some day. But…maybe MR doesn’t like Canadians???* Phfff!..You’re sunk, Wayne! (You, too, Crandell)
Tom
*For Sheldon’s sake, this sentence is made with tongue thoroughly in cheek
Any longtime reader of Model Railroader will likely have long since noticed that MR subtlly “pushes” certain agendas. They began the push of Operations way back in the early 50’s and have devoted inordinate page space to that subject down through the years, in spite of the fact that this particular aspect of the hobby is of interest to only a fraction of the readership.
DCC is the latest “favorite” of the magazine and I would most definitely agree that layout articles where DCC is employed appear to be far more likely to be published than submissions with the layout being DC powered. Once again this is in spite of the fact that no hobby survey has yet indicated that DCC anywhere near dominates in the hobby.
Incidentally, if you carefully peruse the MR’s from earlier in this decade you will discover that at one point early in the 2000’s no DC layouts appeared in the magazine at all for about one full year. And this was at a time when DCC constituted only about 20% of operating systems! Just coincidence? I seriously doubt it.
Agreed, Sheldon. “Layout at a glance” does have that info. My point was that in the Dec issue only one of the three layouts featured has that, and that one operates with DC. Neither of the articles on Rod Stewart’s nor Mark Olstyn’s Urban switching layout mentions control at all.
Sheldon, have you tried contacting the editor’s at MR about your observations and things (i.e. in-depth discussions) you’d like to see?
Crandell: One thing about your powershot, is that if you look at it too long, one realizes that the cylinders should actually be slightly higher, but for the most part, it works great. I reccomend the Kodak Easyshare cameras too.
This one was taken with a largewr Konica Minolta Digital, not a pocket cam. I prefer the pockets for thewir size in tight layout spaces though. Again, the angle, while close, if you look hard enough, the photographer was either 7ft tall, or is sitting on somethi g to bring him up to what appears to be he’s standing even with the ballast, when in fact he should be almost a foot lower.
And surprisingly, Phone cams are wonderfiul for good hegith shots. Like the OP’s cam, theirs is often set at the top or near top of camera. Turn it upside down, and you can get a lower shot. Here’s one I love, but the only thing I an claim about it is the engine.
Actually, it might be aimed a little low, unless the photographer was crouching.
AFT #1 resting in the shafdow of Naptown & White River’s former East Bend engineshop while her train displays at the rarely used Terminal. The NWR moved their shops back into the smaller house this one replaced and left the shell to serve as a protected waitingtrack. That older facility wasn’t long enough to hold AFT1.
Something I’d liek to try, is to build an "underground that screws into the tripod base of the camera. For those shotsa in the air, it would either be done up to look like the camera is shooting from a rooftop (vents ad a trimwork to the edge) or from a hill (rocks and grass unde the camra. It would then take some fancy photowork to blend in the seams of this floating island with the rest of the world, but it might help. My hope being, that with s
I understand what you guys are saying here, but when I look at protoype photos on railpictures.net, they all don’t have ground views, in fact a lot of them are shot from some point of view on a bridge, or hill or something.
Motley, you’re right on: not all railfan shots by any means are from ground level. However, the model shots we take which are supposedly from ground level are sometimes (not all) really from 10-20 feet up. I’m just suggesting a way to improve that position a bit. And I’m NOT knocking anyone’s photos or modeling, particularly Dr. Wayne’s. They are most all better than mine by a long shot (no pun intended).
The Canon Powershot series are all really nice cameras. I loved mine. but then when it died I went to a Canon EOS Rebel XT, which I love for most photography. Now I picked up the Panasonic, and it’s a great little camera for what I wanted it for (model photography from weird angles and positions on the layout), except for the lack of manual settings, like aperture and shutter speed.
And incidentally, those Iowa Interstate locos are really sharp looking, aren’t they?
FYI, there’s an article featuring my layout currently on newsstands… Out of respect for our hosts, I won’t mention the publication’s name, but I’ll hint that it’s about N Scale, and it’s a Magazine… [;)]
There are other methods for getting down low if you have a bigger camera… This is how my friend David K. Smith shot the cover for the aforementioned article…
He built a simple rig out of some steel brackets to allow the camera to be held steady for a portrait image. We used Helicon Focus to build the final image, so the camera had to remain steady for a series of shots with varying focal lengths. The brackets were arranged to allow the camera to sit in the river valley, with the lens of the DSLR sitting just above track level. As long as you can stabilize the camera, it’s also possible to use some first-surface mirrors to capture images from otherwise tight camera angles, then use your digital photo editor to flip and flop as needed to compose the final image.
After the shoot, I built out the rest of the ravine, filling in the area where the camera sat, about where the glue bottles are here. The valley currently looks like this:
And so was this one: 
The second is clearly taken from an apparently tall person, as you stated. Crandell
This one was taken with a largewr Konica Minolta Digital, not a pocket cam. I prefer the pockets for thewir size in tight layout spaces though. Again, the angle, while close, if you look hard enough, the photographer was either 7ft tall, or is sitting on somethi g to bring him up to what appears to be he’s standing even with the ballast, when in fact he should be almost a foot lower.
AFT 
