Weekend Update 12/8/13

[rickb773]

Thought you might get a kick out of this. Google, on their own, took one of my photos of my Christmas train and added animated/falling snow. I don't know how long they will make this available:

https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/-jIlDHWK6S4g/UqN6Goi8iyI/AAAAAAAAC18/yb8AEAAlHtg/w360-h360-p/photo.jpg

[mark dance]

Wow! I was really looking forward to seeing these bridges completed. After only ever seeing really mostly poor quality photos of the prototypes, it's nice to see what they're supposed to look like.

Many thx for the kind compliment.  Actually, you are right, the prototypes are very, very hard to see because of all the trees...so I added a bunch more to try and replicate the prototype effect.  Still not enough but I am aiming for a reasonable compromise.  You can still examine all of the bridges and their support structures if you look closely in person but on first glance the bridges don't dominate mother nature any more.





Much happier...so the scenes are now *done* and on to the next project.

md

[daniel_leavitt2000]

Ok, I know I'm late...

I have been playing with my Nokia Refocus app a lot. Here are some photos I took using a light box and proper floods:

After building the GHQ JD backhoe, there were several parts left over. Not one to waste anything, I started kit-bashing an old DPM JD tractor into a full blown backhoe. The only thing left of the DPM model is the hood and engine compartment. Everything from the steering wheel, cab, shovel front suspension and bucket were scratch built. It was a pain, but there are no backhoes available in N, so this was my only option.


I final added Willmodels wheels to my New Holland loader. These wheels were cast off the Universal Hobbies Komatsu WA450 I believe.


Natick's Engine 1 finally gets side view mirrors. Still need to add wipers... always something missing.


CMW/Wiking IH cement mixer. This was a very cheap build and that parts look right at home together.

So there are some issues using the Refocus app. Some areas appear to be soft. There are halos around some objects, like the top of the mixer body for example. These do not seem to be as pronounced as with Helicon. Now I have a theory for that. The optics in the Lumia phone do not move more than a mm or two when focusing. Larger lenses, especially Macros, move the glass quite a distance to focus on the subject. I bet that if we used a prime lens (which moves very little when focusing), we would eliminate much of the halo effect when using Helicon.

[peteski]

So there are some issues using the Refocus app. Some areas appear to be soft. There are halos around some objects, like the top of the mixer body for example. These do not seem to be as pronounced as with Helicon. Now I have a theory for that. The optics in the Lumia phone do not move more than a mm or two when focusing. Larger lenses, especially Macros, move the glass quite a distance to focus on the subject. I bet that if we used a prime lens (which moves very little when focusing), we would eliminate much of the halo effect when using Helicon.

Nice kitbashes!

As far as the halo effect goes, that has nothing to do with the lens distance to the objects being photographed.  It happens because the stack of images does not contain focused parts of the image of the area where the halo appears.  If you look at the individual photos in the stack (as Helicon allows you to do, while comparing them side by side to the end result) you will notice that the the photo in the stack where the closer objects are out of focus, where the more distant area is in focus, the closer object is fuzzy. The out of focus object's fuzzy image encroaches, blocks the view of the focused background part which would be needed to reconstruct the sharply focused background when stacking the image.  That results in that halo.  The only way I can see to minimize the halo is to take more photos with smaller focus steps between them.  But many digital cameras do not allow for such small steps when adjusting focus.