On a recent trip interstate, I took 5 photos and stitched them together using Photoshop Elements (which it did perfectly). I then took the file to a local company (All Biz of Lonsdale) who printed it (3.25 metres long) for A$84.50. While expensive it is comparable to commercially made Australian back scenes. At least I can say I took the photo.
My problem is that the loco looks completely wrong against the back scene, the trees seem to overwhelm the engine. Any suggestions on how to photograph your own back scenes?.
The only problem I see is the hard line between the lower part of the sky and the upper. When photographing scenes that you will use for a backdrop, select a place where you have a long distance between you and the nearest objects, this will give you more sky to work with. To maintain “horizon integrity”, use a tripod so that you just have to turn the camera horizontally (panning), making sure to slightly overlap the previous composition. Use the camera’s manual settings if you have one; cameras can change the exposure on the “Auto” setting as you move from darker to lighter areas in the sky (or vice-versa, sometimes overcompensating.
I think if you cut it at the road in the pick it would bring it more to scale. The road throws off the scale because it is bigger than the train. He grass close to the bottom also looks way large. This wouuld greatly improve the looks i think
When I was touring Melbourne and Tasmania in 1990, I distinctly remember driving the car rental on prototype scenery, and not on top of a dark brown surface! Thus, your backdrop may look more effective with a more finished & lighter color scenic foreground, where lighting shadows can also be minimized.
Yes I don’t really a see a problem with the trees and background compared to the locomotive. Just blend your scenery using the same kind of trees and ground colors.
But I agree, what is that line across? It looks like a painted backdrop on the top? I would try to blend that better.
The trees look fine. It’s the sky that bothers me. I would trim the photo sky and just use the painted sky . I would shade the sky from the darker blue down to a lighter blue at the mountain tops.
As previously mentioned I think you only have a few adjustments to make. First put in scenery that matches the back drop and you should be just fine. The big difference is the brown table and the backdrop. The next area is the two different skies in the scene, going with either one would eliminate that issue. As to the other scenery dominating the railroad, a typical road lane is between 10 and 14 feet wide, most roads are at least 2 lanes wide and have a shoulder area as well which could cause them to easily be 32 to more than 40 feet wide. The typical railroad has rolling stock with a maximum width of around 10 feet and the area of the right of way not much more, so it is easy to see a roadway seeming much more pronounced than a railroad track. Another way to look at it is looking at a railway line that travels in a street for the differences.
One other way to “improve” things would be to make sure you are further away from your subject when taking the photographs. Make sure the closest item in the picture is at least as far away from the camera as the distance portrayed in your scale models. Further away would be better as it would add forced perspective and make the modeled portion seem to have more depth than it does. One way you could experiment with this distance would be to make a diorama and take it outside to the location and look at it through the view finder to compose the photo. When you like the look of your photo backdrop in relation to your model make sure to adjust the camera so that the closest thing in the picture is the section that would be the closest in the “backdrop” that you saw over the diorama. One other key is to keep the vertical angle of the camera adjusted so it matches the viewing angle of the layout.
Thanks everybody for the input, definitely a work in progress. When I next take photographs I’ll be much more aware of what is in the foreground.
I’m developing a very bad habit of trying to get every step perfect which is slowing me down tremendously. I haven’t got any track down yet! Think I’ll press on and get something moving (trains that is).
I think it is better than you believe. I had a similar situation. I raised the backdrop photos about an inch or so, and added brush and small hilly scenery right along bottom edge of photos. For brush I used flat material like those green scrubby things you clean Teflon fry pans with. I just cut the tops kind of squiggly and tack glued them in place. The little hills I made from foam, very small and more like uneven ground. This will give you some better perspective. Then I added a few regular trees and a lot of bushes too.
Not sure you need all the painted sky above but I would try to blend the colors together. You have the light blue on the bottom and that is good, maybe just try shading about half of the top to gradually match the photo sky color.
That’s not the line they are referring to. It is the line in the sky where light blue meets dark blue. It looks like that is the dividing line between your photo backdrop and the painted backdrop. It appears that you have used push pins to mount that photo backdrop.
The divide between the photo BG and the painted BG is the main problem I see. I use wall-paint sky, spray can clouds, brush painted landforms and paste up cutout architecturals.
As far as the loco being “overwhelmed,” I don’t see that. What I see is the loco casting an unrealistic shadow across a landscape that is supposed to be perhaps a quarter mile away. I had a problem like when I was putting a shrimpboat harbor, part modeled, hard up against a background where some of tthe model buildings cast a shadow on water that was supposed to be 500 feet away. My solkution was to put a picture of a nearby building where the shadow might fall-- something near enough to be believable as having the shaodw on it.
Mockup of uncompleted scene:
The blue building at right was added to the BG because I wanted to have the corrugated shed at right go up to about 3/4 inch of the BG.
For the situation shown in your photo, there might be foliage behind the track that will “catch” the shadow and break it up. You might also raise lights or put z little closer to BG to put them at a steeper angle.
Part of the problem is the near field elements in the photo’s throwing off the scale, something a lot of people overlook. You either need to remove the near field brush/grass and blend the scenery into the picture, or re-scale the pic down so the largest object is roughly HO scale, then everything will scale away from the viewer appropriately. The latter option though would minimize the size of the mountains which look OK as they are, as something like mountains and sky have no real scale.
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