I admit I’m quite ignorant when it comes to model photography. I have a Nikon D3000 with the 18-55 AF-S lens. I cannot got decent pictures of my trains. I have ZERO depth of field and I do not know how to adjust the camera to make it more suitable for model photography. I know there are very talented artists on these forums, I’m hoping that someone has a Nikon D-3000 and could guide me.
Randy
It looks pretty similar to my Canon S3, perhaps a lot more sophisticated, but generally, the principles are the same.
I set my ISO to it’s lowest setting, and put the selector to the setting that controls the exposure time. I also hit the Macro button, to make sure it’s thinking up close. Depending on the situation, I’ll set the exposure time anywhere from 3 to 8 seconds (obviously, you need some sort of tripod or other stabilizer) and I use the :10 self timer to eliminate any “finger on the button” wobble. The low lighting and close focal length usually forces the f-stop to its smallest (highest number) as well.
Once that’s all set, I change the one element that has nothing to do with the camera. The room lighting. My train room is lit with floods on a track light system. This allows me to direct the lighting onto the scene I’m shooting. These are controlled by dimmers, so I can drop the lighting back significantly to let the time exposure work its magic.
Finally, I have DCC, so I have the ability to control the headlights on the engine from a remote hand held, so I simply flash the lights on briefly, then off, to keep them from “burning in” too long during the exposure.
!(https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/_ERLF7TTPvmA/TRiUWFtEY9I/AAAAAAAAMOQ/-IL6ZW-z84I/s800/New Weeklies 096.jpg)
The combined effect is pretty good DOF from front to back, a full reading of color and textures, and very limited fuzzy edges.
Lee
Check out my model railroad photography website in my signature, lots of info there that should help.
everything he said above is correct and also practice practice practice. That is the great thing about digital, you get instant results and you don’t have to pay for film developing. Keep in mind-a pro photographer will shoot hundreds of photos for that one perfect one.
Lee pretty much covered everything. If your camera has a white balance control, set it for the type of lighting you are using; incandescent or florescent, otherwise your photos will have a yellow cast for incandescent and greenish or bluish cast with florescent.
All the advice is working , my pictures are looking better !!! thanks guys!!!
How about posting seem - not that I am overly curious[:-^]
Even with the great advice given here, it’s still difficult (particularly for those of us who don’t have higher end cameras) to achieve good depth of field.
So I use Combine ZP, which is an image processing software package for creating extended depth of field images. You take several shots of the EXACT same scene at different focus points. The software then combines them.
Here’s an N-scale shot I took using this software:
There is no way I’d be able to get my camera to take this shot itself on any setting.
Randy,Heres my thoughts…I don’t want to invest in lights,spend hundreds of dollars on a camera,photoshop or other items to take a simple picture to share on some forum…I use natural light instead and a $20.00 tripod…
I could care less what the “photo experts” like to see in a photo since the whole idea is to share a simple photo…
Depth of field is improved by reducing the lens aperture. Your camera has a manual mode that will allow you to set the aperture (“f stop” in photo speak). The bigger the f stop number, the smaller the aperture and the greater your depth of field. Setting the aperture small reduces the amount of light reaching the “film” (actually a semiconductor sensor these days). You will have to slow the shutter speed to compensate. The camera has a light meter that will tell you when the “exposure” (combination of f stop and shutter speed) is right.
You cannot hand hold exposures longer than 1/60 of a second, you need a tripod to hold the camera steady. I found a nice one at a yard sale for $10. On a tripod use the camera’s self timer to trip the shutter, this prevents your shaky hand from making the camera shake. Select “closeup” mode (“macro mode”) to tell the camera auto focus to focus on close stuff.
Composition is important. Decide upon the center of interest (often a train) and make it fill the view finder. Avoid distractions in the background such as layout edge, corners of the room, ceiling lights, valances, and non-layout stuff. A plain background is best, that way the center of interest stands out clearly.
Thanks guys , I have been practicing and a soon as I have some worthy pictures I’ll try to post them here . I have a couple of work lights and a tripod , I did invest in a fairly expensive camera but when I was reading the manual I got a loud buzzing noise in my head so I didn’t learn a lot that way…
David,
I was just playing around my new point and shoot camera that has manual settings, it’s a Panasonic Lumix DS6. I changed the dial to Aperture Priority, and maxed out the f-stop to 6.3. And using a tripod. The image is overexposed (way too bright).
What did I do wrong here?
What ISO did you have set on the camera? If a high one, try a lower one. The lowest ISO is always best when shooting on a tripod.
Great suggestions. One must is a tripod because shooting using AP (Apeture Priority) lengthens exposure time. A tripod also allows you to take a picture with different lighting to get the best results. I purchased day light bulbs to use with my spots. Make some homemade reflectors.
As was already mentioned you can take as may pictures as you want without it costing you a dime. So experiment and have fun while you learn.
Hmm. Since the picture came out overexposed, figure that the camera’s auto exposure system is disabled, and the shutter speed was too slow (shutter stays open too long, letting in too much light). With auto exposure off, you have to set the shutter speed by hand.
On my point&shoot, the “Manual Mode” gives a tiny menu in the view finder that lets you set aperture (f-stop), and shutter speed by hand. The camera displays an unlabeled “exposure number”. Zero is just right, positive numbers mean over exposed, negative numbers mean under exposed. I set the aperture as small as it will go (largest f-stop number) and then set the shutter speed to drive the “exposure number” to zero.
I cannot remember just what “aperture priority” means. Auto exposure systems can set the exposure by adjusting the aperture or the shutter speed, or both. Used to be, setting “aperture priority” or “shutter priority” let you tell the auto exposure system to hold one steady and adjust the other. Unfortunately, I cannot remember whether “aperture priority” means “hold the aperture steady and adjust the shutter speed” or “adjust the aperture and hold the shutter speed steady” .
No matter. What you need to do is find the shutter speed control and adjust it until you get a nice exposure. There ought to be an “exposure number” displayed somewhere to let you know when you have it right. If not, go by trial and error. Adjust the shutter speed, snap a picture to see how it looks, keep doing this until you get a good looking picture. .
Use the shutter timer.
Work the lighting…try different arrangements, intensities, angles, colour temperatures…
Use a cradle. It can be a slab of cork, an unopened bag of ground foam, or the perch atop a proper tripod.
Set your F stop to its highest number, and allow the shutter to stay open longer…all this in “Manual”. Speaking of which, ya gotta get into the manual…for the camera. Find out what that spiffy thing can do your you!
Use modern knowledge. As Bruce says, Combine ZP does wonders. The trick is to start with a given aiming point and to ensure each successive shot has the same aiming point…hence the cradle or tripod. A soft perch such as a bean bag or ground foam bag won’t do in this case because repositioning the camera each time you add focus depth between shots won’t allow for the same aiming point on a soft perch. Some shift is permissible, but not much.
Crandell
I’m curious how the stacking program Combine ZP can work with a simple point and shoot camera. They want to focus on one central point, so how does one change the focus point without moving the camera to change the focus point? I can see how to use the program with a DSLR, by manually focusing the lens.
Most of what has been suggested in this thread is discussed and demonstrated on my model railroad photography website in my signature.
Sorry to be so late replying, Bob. That is the rub…a point and shoot must have a cradle so that you can take the camera up between shots, find a focus point a bit further, restore it to the cradle, and trip the timer and take hands away. At least, that is how I have had to do it. I am on manual, but the auto-focus works the same way on my Powershot A710is. If I don’t remove the camera, and without a tilting back screen to see what the manual focus is on, I will get the same focal point each time I half-depress the shutter button. So pick it up I must,saim at something to approximate the new distance, and place the camera back… making a robust cradle mandatory. With a tripod, use stops if the head has them, or not objects at the corners of the view screen, turn and focus, return and lock the controls, and trip the shutter.
Yeah, it can be a bit of a bother to set it all up, do six or more takes, and then download and let the computer stack them after a batch conversion to same size files…I use tiff format. But the results kind of speak volumes.
Thanks for the info on using the point and shoot, the method seems to be quite a test of being able to keep the camera exactly in the same place between shots.
I have a Canon Powershot SX30 camera, which would probably be described as a high end point and shoot with its 14MP and 24-840mm zoom. Prior to this one I had the SX20, and before that the S5. The S5 had 8MP and a 12X zoom. All have manually selectable aperture, with a maximum of f/8. I took this photo with the S5 at 28mm and f/8 on my 4 foot module. No focus stacking, just made use of the depth of field of the lens at its widest end and smallest aperture:
A combination of things. Your shutter speed/ISO settings will effect your pictures. If your pictures are overexposed, set your shutter speed to a faster speed, i.e. change from 1/60 to 1/100 or 1/500. Or set your ISO to a lower setting; 100 or 400 to 80. These correspond to the old days of film photography. The higher ISO settings allowed you to take action pictures, at the sacrifice to image quality (graininess). The lower settings gave better color saturation. Learn how to use the exposure meter built into your camera, or find a good camera shop and get a good handheld light meter.
I’ve found that besides a tripod, I’ll use small blocks of wood of different thicknesses to set my camera right on the layout. Also, learn to use a technique called “bracket exposure”. Take the same picture with different camera settings. Use the best exposure for your “final” picture. I use photo software to crop, make fine adjustments to get the best overall picture. Some of us older heads remember shooting up a couple rolls of film to get that one perfect picture. And the best advice; to quote Paul Hornung, “Practice! Practice! Practice!”