Weekend Update 12/18/16

[mu26aeh]

Seeing your ditch light post reminded me of this video I watched over the weekend.

[Roger Holmes]

Posting late this week.  I spent hours trying to retrieve some really crappy cell phone photos from the cloud.  I would love to retake the photos but I have hours invested in this stuff already.

Anyway, I have been building the CMR Charles Building over the last few months.  I have built 6-7 CMR buildings before but this one is far and away the hardest with 452 parts.  Assembly also required removing 480 blue painter's tape window masks from the acrylic mirror panels and a bunch more masks from the clear panels after painting everything with Zylon Camo Brown.  Here's an in progress shot followed by some of the building as installed and wired on the layout.

[Chris333]

So is this some in-camera focus-stacking feature? It takes 3 photos focused on different areas then it combines them automatically?

From what I just read it takes 3 photos all in a row. It also sounds like they are using it as a special effect so only one part of the photo is in focus, but once you take the photo you can combine both focuses together if you want. This shows how it works:

[craigolio1]

Mu26aeh, that video is awesome!  Thanks for posting that.

Roger that building is really cool too. Any plans to light any of the upper stories?

Craig

[peteski]

From what I just read it takes 3 photos all in a row. It also sounds like they are using it as a special effect so only one part of the photo is in focus, but once you take the photo you can combine both focuses together if you want. This shows how it works:

Interesting. Well, whatever you accomplished after taking 20+ photos came out really quite well. I wonder if this is something @daniel_leavitt2000 discussed a while back (some sort of focus stacking for taking photos of N scale model vehicles).

[OldEastRR]

Posting late this week.  I spent hours trying to retrieve some really crappy cell phone photos from the cloud.  I would love to retake the photos but I have hours invested in this stuff already.

Anyway, I have been building the CMR Charles Building over the last few months.  I have built 6-7 CMR buildings before but this one is far and away the hardest with 452 parts.  Assembly also required removing 480 blue painter's tape window masks from the acrylic mirror panels and a bunch more masks from the clear panels after painting everything with Zylon Camo Brown.  Here's an in progress shot followed by some of the building as installed and wired on the layout.

Is that the Daley Plaza Picasso in there? Where'd you get that?

[daniel_leavitt2000]

Interesting. Well, whatever you accomplished after taking 20+ photos came out really quite well. I wonder if this is something @daniel_leavitt2000 discussed a while back (some sort of focus stacking for taking photos of N scale model vehicles).

Yep. A few years ago Nokia had a Windows Phone app called Refocus. The app would take 10-15 photos at different focal lengths in less than half a second. The intended use for this was a Lytro like selective focus feature, and included a viewing app and web site to showcase your photos.

Nokia added a feature no one else has done with apps like these: an "all in focus" button which pulled all in focus points of the photos and stitched them together. The result was actually better than Helicon because the lenses at the end do not move unlike a macro lens in a DSLR. This means there is no "tunneling" effect that you get in Helicon, where the outer edges of the photo are not in focus because near focus creates a wider field of view.

[Side note: this is also why the Sony DSC F717 from 2003 is one of the best model railroad photography cameras ever produced. I still use mine occasionally.]

But Nokia shuttered the app, the website and viewing app. Pulled Refocus from the store and sold itself to Microsoft.

And that was the end of Windows Phone's true killer app.

[Ed Kapuscinski]

I was thinking same thing with the SF truck.  That place must be hawt if guys from out west are making the trek to Baltimore 

Hahahahaha. It's an exchange program.

[chuck geiger]

Trying to use selective focus on a Galaxy S5

Half the time it can't detect far and near, but will kindly only focus on one or the other 

This could be the best model railroad picture ever.

[wm3798]

Posting late this week.  I spent hours trying to retrieve some really crappy cell phone photos from the cloud.  I would love to retake the photos but I have hours invested in this stuff already.

Anyway, I have been building the CMR Charles Building over the last few months.  I have built 6-7 CMR buildings before but this one is far and away the hardest with 452 parts.  Assembly also required removing 480 blue painter's tape window masks from the acrylic mirror panels and a bunch more masks from the clear panels after painting everything with Zylon Camo Brown.  Here's an in progress shot followed by some of the building as installed and wired on the layout.

That's modeled after 1 Charles Center, which served as HQ for the B&O and WM while under Chessie the Knife's tender care.  Don't forget to model the lifeless bodies of the WM men on the pavement after they were heaved out of the board room window in 1974...  Although, an interesting detail would be to put a Chessie logo on the lobby window.  I remember there being one there decaled on the glass.

Lee

[Santa Fe Guy]

The 15 stall roundhouse I am building for my friend is almost complete. It now resides at his house waiting for the sub-roadbed to be made ready before I can join the two halves and add the roof panels.
[ Guests cannot view attachments ] [ Guests cannot view attachments ]
Many of the doors were left off deliberately for appearance sake.
Rod.

[Cajonpassfan]

Rod, that's impressive. What size turntable will it take? Did you modify the radius?
Otto

[Roger Holmes]

Regarding the Charles Building:

OldEastRR--Yes, that is the Chicago Picasso.  It's made of metal and I bought it 10+ years ago at a tourist gift shop in the Loop and it proportions pretty well for N scale.  I have moved it around a lot as none of my city buildings are glued down except the Charles won't be moving since it is wired in.  Not sure where Pablo will end up next.  I moved many structures this weekend when the Charles joined the layout--five finger urban planning.

Craigolio1--I wish I could light the upper stories but they are made of thick, opaque mirrored acrylic.  They do reflect light nicely in person although it proved hard to photograph without me and the cell phone being reflected in the windows.

Lee--Interesting Chessie tie in.  The CMR instructions indicated that it was based on a real building from the 1960's but didn't give any additional information.  Not being a Chessie expert, in what city is it located?

[Santa Fe Guy]

Rod, that's impressive. What size turntable will it take? Did you modify the radius?
Otto

Hi Otto. John is planning to install the standard Walthers N Scale turntable. Correct me if I am wrong it could be a 150 foot bridge. It is designed to work with the roundhouse and is remotely controlled.
No change to the dimensions nor radius it is straight out of lots of boxes LOL.
We will look at other Walthers kits to see if the machine shop etc will fit alongside the roundhouse even if they need kit-bashing.
Regards
Rod.

[Cajonpassfan]

Hi Rod, the Walthers turntable is a 130' footer, so maybe it's the photos that made the radius look smaller. Still a very impressive structure (but then I've always had a weakness for roundhouses; nothing more uniquely steam era "railroady" than that in my book).
My offer to let you build mine still stands
Otto K.