Got a question for the photographers,been to a few layouts with my new digital camera.I have noticed in some of the pictures that the moving trains blur alittle bit.I have the camera set on action but don’t know why some are excellant and some blur.Could it be the lighting or maybe I zoom in to close,any help would be great.
There are many factors at play, and they say that a picture is worth a thousand words. That being said, it would be helpful if you could post some of the pictures so we can see exactly what you are seeing.
Thanks slickfg [:)]
Most often it’s the lighting. If it’s too dim, the camera will set the aperture low (wider lens opening), creating a short depth of field, and set the exposure for longer, so that any movements, including moving trains and camera shake, will show up on the photo as blur.
This may sound obvious, but if you’re photographing trains on your own of a friend’s layout (only photographing trains, not in the middle of operating trains), than you can just pose the train where you want the photo. That way, you won’t get any blur, as nothing will be moving. Here’s an example, taken on my HO scale layout.
If stopping the trains aren’t an option, then you can use a pan shot. This involves moving the camera at the same speed as the train while taking the photo. This can be acomplished either by turning the camera in place (hence the name “pan” shot) or by moving the camera at the same speed at the train as if on a long pole attached to the train. The train will look like it’s stopped, and the scene will be blurred. This may sound like a bad compromise, but a properly taken pan shot will often look better than a regular shot with everything frozen. Here are two examples of a pan shot. The first shot is an “on the long pole” shot, with the whole train stopped, while the second is turning the camera, giving us just the center of the frame frozen, and the edges blurred. Both were taken on the modular O scale layout of the Southern New England Model Railroad Club at the Springfield, MA train show.
Hope this answers your question! Good luck!
The bottom picture is kinda what I have gotten.I will try using a flash also,will have to play around with it,thanks for all the info.
I’m a avid photographer and its takes practice. Speed of the object, light, distance to object, and of course the camara settings.
close to fast moving object slow camara setting
close to stationary object with flash
far from moving moving object fast camara setting
It takes some practice to get it right at least with a digital camara you can delete and try it again verses a film camara you can’t
I use a cheapie GE digital. I set the thing on a tripod with a grid laid into the view screen in the back aimed at the center mass of the target. I then set the camera to a 2 second delay during which it auto fires a LED measuring everything then fires the flash taking the shot.
The camcorder gets set on a easy shoot mode where it knows that there are moving objects and tends to focus on the first item closest to the lens.
With digital I fire off dozens and shove em onto a computer and delete the bad shots. I might have 600 shots in the memory card and maybe 200 survive the deleting on the computer. Thank god for Digital, cheaper than film and much faster too.
At some point in the future the HD camcorder is going to show up and be used. The smallest of flaws are going to be caught really well by these cameras.