Joined: 08/01/2022(UTC) Posts: 83 Location: England, London
|
Greetings all. So earlier this year I built myself a small diorama loosely based on French high speed lines. It was important to me from the get-go that this would be semi-modular as my sole purpose for it to exist was to take nice pictures of trains on it from different eras. This diorama was to be so diverse...that I also planned to use it to model scenes from multiple different countries! Through the power of photographic trickery and careful(ish) placement...I attempted to make this work. Whether I succeeded or not is another matter lol French high speed lines in the countryside generally don't have the most amazing, exciting scenery which is a big bonus for me cause I mostly suck and don't have the patience for super high quality modelling.  The main focus for me was the final images and the trains themselves are the stars of the show. BTW....I'm a HUGE high speed train fanboy, especially TGV's! Can't make any excuses for it lol but I do really appreciate other types of trains which I've accumulated literally just over the last 6 months, which you'll see in my images below. I didn't document much of the building process so don't have many pictures to share apart from these:    The other benefit of having a fairly sparse diorama is so I can easily swap out buildings, trees, etc. Even the catenary is easy to swap out!  The whole reason why I started this journey was almost purely from when Marklin/TRIX announced (last year, I believe?) that they were making a TGV Euroduplex lol. Ever since then...my bank balance has gone downhill, dammit. Anyways....here's some pictures of the "final" result:       Cuthbert 80 |
|
 21 users liked this useful post by Cuthbert 80
|
jcrtrains, nhumps, xxup, boitpo, Purellum, dickinsonj, phils2um, kiwiracer, Danlake, Mark5, Toosmall, Gregor, roberts, Ian555, rmsailor, Bogenschütze, Alsterstreek, marklinist5999, Martti Mäntylä, kiwiAlan, kimballthurlow
|
|
Joined: 03/08/2011(UTC) Posts: 1,571
|
Stunning photos - well done 👍
Best Regards Lasse |
Digital 11m2 layout / C (M&K) tracks / Era IV / CS3 60226 / Train Controller Gold 9 with 4D sound. Mainly Danish and German Locomotives. |
 1 user liked this useful post by Danlake
|
|
|
Joined: 26/07/2021(UTC) Posts: 635 Location: Sydney
|
Nice photos. If you have a longer lens, I like setting up with a 300mm plus 1.4 extender from a distance. I also have a 2.0 extender but it is not as sharp.
But any longer lens will do and crop the photo. Also a point light from a distance for longer and more defined shadows.
I have an ARRI 2000 watt fresnel lamp but a cheap 150 watt outdoor lamp will work well. Just a longer exposure with mirror lockup & shutter release cable or timer. Or afternoon sun if you have the right space.
|
 1 user liked this useful post by Toosmall
|
|
|
Joined: 08/01/2022(UTC) Posts: 83 Location: England, London
|
Originally Posted by: Danlake  Stunning photos - well done 👍
Best Regards Lasse Lasse, thanks so much mate! 👍 Originally Posted by: Toosmall  Nice photos. If you have a longer lens, I like setting up with a 300mm plus 1.4 extender from a distance. I also have a 2.0 extender but it is not as sharp.
But any longer lens will do and crop the photo. Also a point light from a distance for longer and more defined shadows.
I have an ARRI 2000 watt fresnel lamp but a cheap 150 watt outdoor lamp will work well. Just a longer exposure with mirror lockup & shutter release cable or timer. Or afternoon sun if you have the right space. Hey Toosmall, Thanks buddy. So I have a few different lenses but my longest lens is a Canon 135mm F2 prime. The problem I've had since forever shooting these trains is also shooting on a full-frame camera which deprives me even more of depth of field lol so I'm forced to focus stack mulitple pictures to create one image....if I wanna get almost every part of the trains in focus, dammit lol. Even at F16...theres a severe lack of depth of field when shooting these miniature loks I also have 2 light strobes from Interfit...one's a 250 watt and the other is a 500 watt. 👍 |
|
|
|
|
Joined: 05/03/2016(UTC) Posts: 368 Location: England, Bedford
|
Great pictures, terrific diorama and convincing backgrounds. Can't wait for you to complete the entire layout and get them running. You might have to move house!
|
 1 user liked this useful post by IanC
|
|
|
Joined: 08/01/2022(UTC) Posts: 83 Location: England, London
|
Originally Posted by: IanC  Great pictures, terrific diorama and convincing backgrounds. Can't wait for you to complete the entire layout and get them running. You might have to move house!
Ian, thanks so much mate. At this rate...I would indeed have to consider moving to a larger new place sometime soon! |
|
|
|
|
Joined: 26/07/2021(UTC) Posts: 635 Location: Sydney
|
I have the Canon 135mm f2, a brilliant piece of glass, & great with 1.4 extender. Being much further away & crop the image unless you want to print out an A3, you will get enough DOF in you crop a lot from a much further distance (ie double the distance & use a quarter of the image) It's ok up to f16.
Sharpening the L channel in LAB, often I double the image pixel size, sharpen, half the size (300dpi > 600dpi > 300dpi & you don't have to think). Smoother sharpening less highlighting of luminance noise. Blurring AB channels a bit to reduce artifacts is handy.
You could do a f22 shot, then a f11 shot for the centre details & stack. People don't look at the surrounding details.
|
 1 user liked this useful post by Toosmall
|
|
|
Joined: 10/02/2021(UTC) Posts: 3,884 Location: Michigan, Troy
|
Looks like you are ready for the HS2 ahead of schedule!
|
 1 user liked this useful post by marklinist5999
|
|
|
Joined: 08/01/2022(UTC) Posts: 83 Location: England, London
|
Originally Posted by: Toosmall  I have the Canon 135mm f2, a brilliant piece of glass, & great with 1.4 extender. Being much further away & crop the image unless you want to print out an A3, you will get enough DOF in you crop a lot from a much further distance (ie double the distance & use a quarter of the image) It's ok up to f16.
Sharpening the L channel in LAB, often I double the image pixel size, sharpen, half the size (300dpi > 600dpi > 300dpi & you don't have to think). Smoother sharpening less highlighting of luminance noise. Blurring AB channels a bit to reduce artifacts is handy.
You could do a f22 shot, then a f11 shot for the centre details & stack. People don't look at the surrounding details. Interesting workflow, thanks for sharing mate. I do back up a bit and crop in a little but not too much. I got 20 megapixels to play with which is ok but I'd have more freedom if I'd have 50+ lol Originally Posted by: marklinist5999  Looks like you are ready for the HS2 ahead of schedule! Ohhhhh yeah! |
|
 1 user liked this useful post by Cuthbert 80
|
|
|
Joined: 15/05/2003(UTC) Posts: 176 Location: Cherry Hill, NJ
|
50+ megapixel like the Fuji GFX series plus the medium format! Always wanted one, but the price was always up there.
|
 1 user liked this useful post by bgemski
|
|
|
Joined: 08/01/2022(UTC) Posts: 83 Location: England, London
|
Originally Posted by: bgemski  50+ megapixel like the Fuji GFX series plus the medium format! Always wanted one, but the price was always up there. Gorgeous camera...would love one too! For shooting HO scale model trains though...that camera would likely be pretty horrible because of the larger image sensor! You'd be even more deprived of depth of field to get whole trains fully in focus....50 megapixels might not help much!!! |
|
|
|
|
Joined: 08/01/2022(UTC) Posts: 83 Location: England, London
|
A few more from my collection:    Cuthbert 80 |
|
 7 users liked this useful post by Cuthbert 80
|
|
|
Joined: 30/01/2006(UTC) Posts: 1,893 Location: Keene, NH
|
|
|
 1 user liked this useful post by mmervine
|
|
|
Joined: 15/05/2003(UTC) Posts: 176 Location: Cherry Hill, NJ
|
Originally Posted by: Cuthbert 80  Originally Posted by: bgemski  50+ megapixel like the Fuji GFX series plus the medium format! Always wanted one, but the price was always up there. Gorgeous camera...would love one too! For shooting HO scale model trains though...that camera would likely be pretty horrible because of the larger image sensor! You'd be even more deprived of depth of field to get whole trains fully in focus....50 megapixels might not help much!!! Very true in this case it’s overkill. I’d still ove one for landscapes. I had my thoughts on the GFX50R for a while now but the Nikon system I shoot I have to much invested in to switch up. I did however pick up the Fuji xpro 2 and I adore that little camera!
|
 1 user liked this useful post by bgemski
|
|
|
Joined: 26/07/2021(UTC) Posts: 635 Location: Sydney
|
I am still using a Canon 5D2 from 2008, 5616 x 3744 pixels. I only use the LAB process if I need to squeeze every last bit out of an image.
Most of the time 2.5k pixels wide is more than enough for most images so there is lots of cropping potential. Or if you want to keep verticals vertical use a wider angle lens and crop off top and or bottom, often doing this in Photoshop doesn't look quite right or you run out of corners of the image, so a bit of both are handy.
Another sharpening trick for local contrast is say about, Amount 10 to 20%, Radius 20 to 50 pixels, Thresholds 0.
Amount 100 - 200% Radius 0.3, Threshold 0 at the end can help make the image more "crisp".
But at the end of the day nothing worse than an over sharpened look to an image.
|
 1 user liked this useful post by Toosmall
|
|
|
Joined: 26/07/2021(UTC) Posts: 635 Location: Sydney
|
Originally Posted by: bgemski  Originally Posted by: Cuthbert 80  Originally Posted by: bgemski  50+ megapixel like the Fuji GFX series plus the medium format! Always wanted one, but the price was always up there. Gorgeous camera...would love one too! For shooting HO scale model trains though...that camera would likely be pretty horrible because of the larger image sensor! You'd be even more deprived of depth of field to get whole trains fully in focus....50 megapixels might not help much!!! Very true in this case it’s overkill. I’d still ove one for landscapes. I had my thoughts on the GFX50R for a while now but the Nikon system I shoot I have to much invested in to switch up. I did however pick up the Fuji xpro 2 and I adore that little camera! I have old Mamiya RZ67 (door stop equipment). If you go up a format size all the lenses get bigger & heavier. The 75mm shift lens is 1.8kg, 50mm 812g.
|
 2 users liked this useful post by Toosmall
|
|
|
Forum Jump
You cannot post new topics in this forum.
You cannot reply to topics in this forum.
You cannot delete your posts in this forum.
You cannot edit your posts in this forum.
You cannot create polls in this forum.
You cannot vote in polls in this forum.