Cells getting decent shots

[bbussey]

Wish my phone could take this pic with the whole car in focus

Move the camera back from the subject and zoom in.

[MVW]

This certainly makes my list of coolest N scale shots ever. 

Doug, just out of curiosity, what's the depth of this scene, at least to the point where the main street buildings begin to turn? 25-30"?

Jim

[bbussey]

I model N scale, but soon I'll be switching to HO.

It is hard to take a photo of a train at an angle. Like, a 3/4 view of of a steam loco. I use an app called Camera+ that allows for some manual controls. It has a macro mode that lets me take shots like this:


It has problems with angles, but then again, I'm not setting the ISO low, nor am I doing long exposures or using a tripod.

I guess I thought focus stacking would be the solution to my problem.  I admit I don't know much about photography.

Turn the iPhone upside down to get track-level perspective, then stack or manually stitch to get deeper DOF.

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[dougnelson]

This certainly makes my list of coolest N scale shots ever. 

Doug, just out of curiosity, what's the depth of this scene, at least to the point where the main street buildings begin to turn? 25-30"?

Jim

The commercial row is 30" (not including the factory buildings).

[peteski]

Thread drift 

Doug, how did you either fix or avoid the halo artifact in Helicon Focus around the utility pole closest to the camera?  I know that if I took that photo stack I would have had a nasty halo to deal with.

[Missaberoad]

Pelle Soeborg chose the iPhone 7 because of its offset camera lens, which I think is a really good reason.  I've been thinking about getting a used one just for the camera which will get down to the "ground" better than the centered camera on the Samsung, although the sensor megapixel count on the Samsung is significantly more than the iPhone 7.
Tradeoffs....hmmmph!
Cheerio!
Bob Gilmore

An Xperia Xz1 or even a used Xperia 5 would get you the best of both worlds with an offset camera and 19 and 23 mp cameras respectively...

Of course high pixel count has its disadvantages aswell... 

[dougnelson]

Thread drift 

Doug, how did you either fix or avoid the halo artifact in Helicon Focus around the utility pole closest to the camera?  I know that if I took that photo stack I would have had a nasty halo to deal with.

I don’t remember needing to do that on this photo, but if that occurs I would fix it with Photoshop. Trim and paste in-focus segments from individual photos from the stack.

[peteski]

I don’t remember needing to do that on this photo, but if that occurs I would fix it with Photoshop. Trim and paste in-focus segments from individual photos from the stack.

Interesting. I usually do the touch-ups right in Helicon since it makes that task easy. In my experience, with this situation, none of the photos in the stack have in-focus info for the halo area around the edges for the type of an object like that utility pole. It is because the photos which are focused in the far back areas show the blur around the pole.  Bob Gilmore once explained how that happens.  Maybe my stacks do not have enough photos (or the individual photos taken by your camera have greater DOF). But whatever you did, worked out really nice.

[C855B]

Article by Lance Mindheim covering this very topic in the Nov. 2017 issue of Model Railroad Hobbyist.

[peteski]

Article by Lance Mindheim covering this very topic in the Nov. 2017 issue of Model Railroad Hobbyist.

Thanks, but that does not really address what I'm experiencing. It is probably my camera's limitation as far as the focus steps go (I'm not using a smart phone).

[peteski]

Thanks, but that does not really address what I'm experiencing. It is probably my camera's limitation as far as the focus steps go (I'm not using a smart phone).

What in my statement above warrants down-voting it?  WTF! 

[robert3985]

What in my statement above warrants down-voting it?  WTF! 

Peter, I cancelled the downvotes...evidently someone here is not your fan...

Probably the same person who downvoted several of my differing opinions in this thread too...

Cheerio!
Bob Gilmore

[Jbub]

I really don't get the reason to down-vote. Unless the post is exceptionally negative or vitriolic and detracts from TRW's purpose of finer modeling there's no reason to spread the hate. Upvote often when you find something you like and save the down-vote for those things that truly need a down-vote, not just because "I don't do it that way"

Jbub

[peteski]

Peter, I cancelled the downvotes...evidently someone here is not your fan...

Probably the same person who downvoted several of my differing opinions in this thread too...

Cheerio!
Bob Gilmore

Thanks Bob.  I also try to "fix" these gratuitous down-votes if and when I see them.  IMO, the entire implementation (especially the anonymity of it) stinks!
Another member PMd me about this and I agree with his thoughts that this should be implemented as up-vote only system (for when someone deserves up-votes for useful or informative posts). Instead of down-votes, if someone dislikes the post enough to do something about it, they should just notify the moderators. This function already exists on TRW.  We seem to have too many accidental or malicious down-voting.

[peteski]

LOL - I just got another down-vote for my post above this one.  It smells malicious. 


EDIT:
WOW!  TO whomever "fixed" and "fixed" and "fixed" the down-vote - thanks!  You were probably just were of me kvetching. But thank you anyway.