As I was enjoying this week’s WPF, I thought I’d go out in the garage and snap a few shots of some of my weathering that I’m doing, but all of the shots turned out like crap. I was using my digital Kodak Easy Share, but then thought it was the camera, so I borrowed my daughter’s Fuji S1000 that we gave her for Christmas. They were ALOT better, but nowhere near the caliber of some of the WPF photos on here. I even set up my double halogen work light to improve lighting, but to no avail. What settings on the camera or what lighting changes do I need to do to make them worthy of this forum??? Skip
Check out my model railroad photography website in my signature, should be some help for you there. Offering suggestions as to what settings to use is generally not feasible not knowing your camera’s capabilities, if you have a tripod or not, how much light there is on your models, and many other reasons. Check out what I suggest on my site.
And why were your photos bad? Too dark? Too light? Out of focus? Color off? Way too many variables unless you post an example and list what settings you did use.
Good luck!
Thanks for the info, but I don’t know where to look for the link in your signature???
Look for this little truck at the bottom of Bob’s posting, it’s under that:
Apparently, I have to do something else b/c I don’t even see the yellow truck, let alone the link???
Well, that’s weird…I just logged out then back in and the yellow truck in question is under WJSTIX’s quote, but still no link???
NEVER MIND, everybody…I found something under profile update that I wasn’t allowing user avatars and signatures!! ANOTHER railroading problem fixed on this forum!!
I have recently used a Fuji for some layout photos and found it necessary to turn its ISO setting down to the lowest possible. Self-timer is a must, too, and use the camera on its finest resolution. Definitely more ‘touchy’ than my Olympus.
Mike
I believe this is controlled by your settings in your “profile”. In the largest black space at right, underneath, it says, “My Profile”. If you click on “Update Profile”, a page opens with options for you. One of them deals with whether you can see all the little images that people post in their signatures and also their avatars. By preventing this, with the appropriate setting enabled, those on dial-up and slower services don’t have to wait for so much data. Yours must currently be set to prevent you from seeing them.
Don’t forget to “save” any changes before you leave the page! Look for the “save changes” prompt at bottom right. If you forget, you have accomplished nothing.
-Crandell
Bob, If I can figure out how, I’ll post a couple of pix that I took last night. If nobody hears from me in about an hour, shoot me a message and let me know how to post pix!! Skip
If you could post one of the pictures, good or bad, it would be a big help in diagnosing what the main problem might be. Are they out of focus? Too dark, too light, off color (color cast over entire image), part of the subject in focus, part out? Someone mentioned using a tripod and the camera’s self timer, both excellent suggestions and Rail Photog’s website has a wealth of information.
It really is a big subject and there usually isn’t a simple answer. If you do post one of the offending photos, please tell the camera settings the best you can, such as resolution setting, white balance, shutter speed and iso setting.
Jarrell
OK…I’m just wasting time , so “How do you post a picture here?”
Skip,
Click on this link and read the tutorial on posting photos:
http://cs.trains.com/trccs/forums/p/143018/1590087.aspx#1590087
Don Z.
Skip, “when all else fails, RTFM!” (Read The “Fine” Manual) that came with the camera. It should have a way to set a manual white balance for your camera and lighting. (It usually involves taking a picture of a sheet of white paper under your layout lighting WITHOUT FLASH, then selecting that picture for the camera’s processor to reference for white.) That should take care of most of your problem. Then if your camera allows, set the aperture (lens opening) for as small as you can. This last will increase the “depth of field” (the range of distance from the lens that the subjects in the field will be in focus), thus increasing the realism. And don’t use the flash with manual white balance - the colors will come out all blue.
The nice thing about these digital cameras is it doesn’t cost anything to experiment with them!
The focal ratio of any optical system is a function of the diameter of the iris, or aperture, and the distance to the focal plane (the receiver or light sensitive medium/device in a camera). If you put your camera in "AV, that will allow you to set the F ratio. You want the highest number the camera can give you. For the tyical $200 pont-and-shoot, that will be near F-8. For slightly more sophisticated points-and-shoots, you may get up to F-12. Single Lens Reflex (SLR) cameras costing about twice that, and on up into the thousands of dollars can often go way beyond that with the right lens.
Unfortunately, stopping down the iris to make it small, which also raises he focal ratio that gets you better depth of focus, also means less light falling on the receiver over a given unit of time. So, the nice sharp image will be very faint…very dark. The answer to that problem is to place the camera on a tripod and do a combination of two things: manually set the shutter opening time, the exposure time as it is called, for something much longer than the quick click the camera will use when in automatic mode. The exposure time, the shutter hold-open time, is set in “M” mode…at least it is on a Canon.
But you can also raise the light indicent on the scene being photographed by shining more of them onto it. The boost of both exposure time and more light will counteract the very tiny aperture the camea will present to the reciever that is restricting how much light falls on it. Think of watering with a hose. If the hose is very narrow, you’ll be standing there longer to water the flowers. But they will eventually get all the water they need. Or, you can get a bigger hose, or you can force more water under greater pressure.
The four big things: light up the scene with lots of light, and hopefully not from all over the p
…Don’t use the flash under ANY circumstances! With models, a forward facing flash that all cameras have will wash out the side of the subject, making it impossible to see many details, including weathering.
Get plenty of light on your subject so you don’t have to use flash. There should be a manual mode (even on the small camera I sometimes use) where you can disable the flash. You probably can’t mess with exposure time, ISO, or aperture, but it’s a lot better than full automatic!
I use a Kodak EasyShare camera for taking pics of my models, the camera I have is the EasyShare C633 and I’ve been getting pretty good results with it. I use a halogen table lamp, a tripod, and use the macro setting (no flash) when I take close-up pics of whatever. The camera also has some basic settings that can be adjusted like the white balance, ISO speed, and focus zone. Here are some examples:
Just play around with the camera settings until you find what works for you. As someone stated earlier, it doesn’t cost you anything to experiment with digital photograpy (maybe time though). Good luck and I look forward to seeing some of your work.
As you’ve probably surmised by now, in this thread… today’s modern digital cameras are little marvels and just about any of them will make good pictures. As the other’s have said one of the great things about them is it doesn’t cost anything to experiment. But, you do need to know a little about lens openings (f/stops] and shutter speeds, image resolution etc. and how each of them have an effect on the picture. The good news is it ain’t rocket science and most anyone can master it in a short time… if they want to.
So post that picture and let’s see what the problem is. There are a lot of good photographers here and they all seem willing to help.
Jarrell
“Model Railroading’s Guide to Model Photography” is a good book. I think it’s out of print but you can find it easily enough…my LHS has several still no the shelfs. It’s pre-digital but still gives you a good knowledge of model photography. The biggest thing is the f-stop settings. I find f-16 or more is needed for a good picture in most situations, a camera that will stop down to F-32 would be better. Of course making the aperture that small means you have to adjust the time to let more light in. With my 35mm camera at f-16 I often do 3-4 second exposures.
When I click on your site I get:
This site has been disabled for violations of our Terms of Service. If you feel this disabling was in error, please visit our contact page to let us know. Contact Us