I must say Lee that’s it’s pictures such as yours that make me wish I didn’t have a 50 year accumulation of HO. I have “some” N Scale that I’ve picked up with the idea of getting the wife interested in a layout of her own but everytime I see a layout such as yours or pictures there of I start thinling things such as how nicely N Scale would be on my 12X70 foot layout. While it’s still in the construction process at this point the idea really inspires me until I realize what I have invested in my HO and the amount of it I have.
If I were still in my 40’s instead of my 60’s I’d do it in a heartbeat but a bypass and losing a leg sort of snaps a person back to the reality that I’m running out of time to get this thing going again. Oh to be young again and know what I know now, or even a hint…
Still, a beautiful layout and I can appreciate the work and talent involved from your pictures.
Are we looking at the same image, Sheldon? I see a lot of weathering in this image. Yes, the cars here don’t look like some of the weathered models I see, but I have seen weathered rolling stock on this forum that have minimal, you could say tasteful, weathering mimicking very precisely what I see in the image here.
Agreed, lots of guys do great minimal weathering, that’s what I’m into.
But as soon as you say weathering a lot poeple post pictures of stuff that looks like a battle just ended.
And, I do believe too many people do not take into account viewing distance and try to add too much “detail” to their weathering.
Just my preferences, the world does not appear that run down and beat up to me and this photo is a fine example of real life that is not run down, beat up, rusty, neglected, paint peeling decay.
I model the fifties and have researched color photos from that era - it looked largely like this photo.
Thanks for your kind words. The fact is, some of the great HO layouts inspired me to strive for the level of scenery you see in my shots. I just never had enough room!
– Use your camera’s self-timer feature. Many cameras will also allow you to select the time, or else from a few pre-set time values. Using the self-timer allows you to press the trigger (shutter button) and then give the camera a chance to settle out its vibrations prior to taking the picture. The longer you can set the timer (up to a point) the better.
– Many cameras that have a USB interface can allow you to control the camera via a computer. You might have to download some software from the manufacturer’s web site, or else read the (real) technical manual for the camera to discover that it uses a “common” control format. Most modern Canon cameras, for instance, can be controlled from the USB interface with a small program you can download for Canon. Olympus is the same way, and I expect probably Nikon and most of the others are too.
– Additionally, many cameras will permit you to trigger the shutter by “remote control”, using an inexpensive infrared (IR) remote… inexpensive here means buying a third-party version from ebay or something. The one I have cost maybe $10-15 bucks (including the battery and shipping) and works with my Canon, Olympus and Nikon cameras. Its tiny, about the size of a credit card (maybe not even that big) and I’ve had it for five years now and still haven’t had to change the battery. It also has some additional functions for cameras that support them. (I don’t recall what they are offhand and I’m not looking at the remote. However, I just bought it for the ability to remotely trigger the shutter)
– Along the same vein, you can also get software or IR remotes that will permit you to take periodic pictures (i.e. act as an ‘intervalometer’) of the type you see on nature shows and stuff-- where you see a plant sprout from a seed to a seedling to a full flower in a couple of seconds worth of video. They take a picture every few hours and then string them all together to make the video.
Another thing you can do, if you’re willing to do a little bit of “surgery” on your camera, is to remove and extend the actual “camera” lens / sensor element-- on most non DSLR cameras it is a self-contained unit attached to the main circuit board inside the camera body. Caveat: If your sensor is a “chip” soldered directly to the board you may not be able to do this. Also the “lens” portion may be a separate assembly, it depends on the type, brand, and features of the camera-- probably easier to do this with a lower-down-the-line camera than a top-of-the-line kind. Anyway, if you have the right type, the “camera” assembly is only connected to the circuit board by a few pins which you can carefully desolder and add a short bit of wire. You’re talking about essentially video frequency signals here (although they’re technically not “video”) so use shielded cabling. You also can’t extend the length by much but you can certainly get a few inches, which in this situation is enough.
I had an old Ricoh digital camera that I dropped and broke the case. So I did exactly what I suggested above and converted it into a camera for looking into tight spots and difficult to reach places. My kid broke my wife’s point-n-shoot Canon camera this past summer so I got a chance to look at that one too-- and it worked essentially the same way except the lens was a separate assembly.
If you are unable / unwilling to convert an existing camera, you could also pick up a surplus (el-cheapo) digital camera from many online sources including ebay, and “sacrifice” it for the cause. Again, performing some sort of similar “conversion” as I suggest above. It isn’t hard and any camera that can do 3-5 mega pixels or more is a good candidate. Since you’re not using it for general photography, most of the other “regular” ca
You’re absolutely right, Sheldon. And another thing is the grass is way too neatly manicured-- who has grass like that? And there’s no trash, no dirt anywhere. The ballast is all the same color. And that background is clearly a photo backdrop…
And another thign I thought of, is the angles we shoot at from so high up. I look at the IAIS shot, and you know for a fact that he’s on a bridge. Part of that is the mind telling me this, but the angle is also quite suggestive of that fact. However, some of our camera angles can also be too steep to look real mfrom some heights; if I’m shooting from the roof of a high rise or flat-topped warehouse, it should look like I’ve got the camrera over the edge a bit, not hanging on a pole
Years ago when I used to stuff olives they would run us ‘stuffers’ through a steam chamber where we would be reduced to a size to allow us to carry a plug of pimento into the body of the olive and then escape through the little hole in the other end leaving the pimento behind; afterwards we would go into a recovery room where we would gradually return to our normal size. I suppose that this procedure could be used to shrink us to HO-Scale size for photography purposes.
