Has Model Railroader magazine ever had an article, or said here, what type cameras i.e., film or digital…, 35mm slr’s or view cameras, are used to produce their magazine photos?
JaRRell
It was discussed here about four months ago, maybe five. I think Bob and Joe will have an answer for you.
It comes up frequently in the magazine. They prefer not to use digital pictures at this time (not the same quality unless you have a gazillion dollar digital super camera!). There have been countless articles over the years about lighting, depth of field, pinhole lenses (remember all the Fricko Blinko stuff?), etc. If you have access to back issues, use the magazine index on this web page, find those back issues and enjoy. You can also order back issues and/or photo copies of out of print articles from Kalmbach.
It’s not the type of camera they care about, but the quality of the images. I think their Annual Photo Contest will accept digital photos from 6MP cameras, but I could be wrong as I haven’t checked out the rules for a while.
Keep in mind there are different ways to measure the megapixels. Small point and shoot cameras are now available with 5-8MP, BUT the sensors in these small cameras are also small. Larger DSLR’s (Digital Single Lens Reflex) cameras have larger sensors, so their individual pixels are therefore larger and more preferred. DSLRs will produce better images than point and shoot cameras with the same pixel count. And their lenses are usually better too.
For years their preference was 35mm slide film and some photgraphers used larger sized cameras too. All of my color submissions were on slide film, up to an article I had in Model Railroading magazine this past March, which were all digital from my 6MP Canon Digital Rebel. RMC has also accepted an article of mine that has only digital images too.
You can always send a note to MR and ask for guidelines.
Bob Boudreau
The rules are available somewhere on this site (sorry for a half answer - but maybe it will lead you down the path to the answer).
I’d love to get a hard core digital SLR camera - maybe in a few years. My wife and I just had our wedding photographer take pictures of us and our new baby - she just finally converted to 100% digital. She said it was a $10K investment, and she feels digital has just finally caught up with standard SLR cameras, and surpassing them in low lighting conditions. Her photos are georgeous. Cracks me up - I think I take decent pictures until I see some taken by a professional. It’s like night and day.
Think about 10 years from now - the stuff will be so cheap. That will be awesome!!!
Since MR photography is pretty much still photography, I think the investment is much less. I can’t wait for 5 years from now!
It’s right here:
I had planned on entering photos to the MR Photography contest last October. Then I went to the MR site and started reading their submission data. I would have to either hire or become a professional photographer. Neither of which I can afford at this time. Digital cameras need to be 3.3 megs or better. I have a 2.0. I had submitted photos to Walthers “Magic of Modelrailroading” contest in April, I expected to hear nothing but I had 3 photos ( out of 6 or 8) chosen. And I thought they looked fine once printed. Not the big prize but exciting none the less.
I wish I knew what us poor folks were supposed to do to get recognized.
I will admit that MR has the best photos of most other RR mags.