Photographic Assistance

I agree with that Tony, I was on the verge of buying one of these cameras and would be more than interested to learn more about it.

Sorry, not willing to do that. What I am going to send to Philip is a first draft of an e-book (pdf) "Collector's Guide to Photographing Die-Cast Models". It presently runs to 72 pages. In it I use a range of 10 different cameras - from point-and-shoot through to dSLR - to explain how to get the best from each of them. When edited and knocked into shape it will go on sale via normal channels.

Hi Norm, the camera that Philip has bought is generally regarded as a 'bridge' camera. I have great regard for them. But.....! They are not something to slip into your trouser pocket for day-to-day use and you don't have the control that you get with a full-blown SLR. Before splashing the cash you need to be very specific on what you want the camera to allow you to do. I rarely use my DSLR these days - but keep it just for those specific days when it is essential. That said I rarely leave the house without taking a camera with me. My general purpose camera is a Fuji F660EXR. I also use the camera on my smart-phone. In some ways choosing a camera is much like choosing between a spade or a fork to dig the garden. Most gardeners usually have both to hand, and it is the same for me with cameras. A good site to pick up a 'reduced price' Fuji camera is here. They are refurbished cameras but that means they were faulty when new and once fixed each is individually tested before despatch. To get 'expert' reviews then a good site is this one.

Now here is a guy who understands about lighting and perspective and using focal length for depth of field. You're good, Pix.

See this link for model car photography, quite amazing too, eh.

Not quite as sophisticated as the images on Mike's link but very simple to do. The background is merely an A4 print (and printed on cheap copy paper) and stood up behind the model. I went out with my camera to shoot suitable backgrounds for my models. Again, both background and model were shot on a compact camera rather than an SLR.

No passengers on a bus is one thing, and not an unusual sight, but a driverless bus pulling away from the stop? In Blackburn?

I used to take sky backgrounds to merge with aircraft show shots where the sky was often overcast and grey. Like the problem with getting shadows to appear right across two separate shots as above, white clouds in my shots sometimes washed out detail on wingtips etc. All my work was done on transparencies where there was little one could do to move the separate images around. Not surprisingly, I had a large number of skyshots, and the questions of course asked by people watching me get them.

Hi all I still continue to use my Sony digital SLR as my choice for recording our model railway pictures. The specific reason for buying my new Fuji S8200 is for outdoor use, utilising it's amazing telephoto spec. I am sure that if I can gain experience with setting the metering correctly, which involves a Fuji custom locking, I may find that it performs as well as my Sony for indoors. This might be new toys for old dogs, where I am the old dog. My photo album on here has over a hundred pictures of our model railway, where most of the pictures I am delighted with. I do understand the principles of aperture & time exposure, but I have not got my head around metering control of the Fuji. That I believe is the issue. I hope anyway.

Without a few 'failed' images and a better description of what the problem is I cannot really help. If you are not willing to put the images up for others to see then you can email them to me.

Hi Pixrobin, How do I set the Fuji please, so as to have a full depth of focus. This second is my Sony.

First things I note are that the pictures are at different angles so the relative distances between near object/far object are different, hence the Sony picture doesn't need the same depth of field (depth of field in front of lens/depth of focus at rear of lens) as that of the Fuji. With the Fuji image you are either closer to the model or you have used a slight zoom to frame the image you want. Closer or longer focal length, they both affect depth of field significantly at the distances we are talking of here. Looking at the specifications of your camera on the Fuji site I note that at wide angle settings then you have only two aperture settings to play with: f2.9 and f8.4. When on the 'A' setting you will have a choice between the two - choose the latter, smaller aperture. (The reason for no smaller apertures is the fact that to do so would see an increase in diffraction which will spoil the overall sharpness of the image.) I guess the standard lens on your Sony will stop down to f16 or f22. Whether this would give more depth of field compared to the Fuji is debatable: on the one side there is the fact that the Fuji's lens is of much shorter length, but on the other the sensor on the Fuji is a lot smaller and would need to be enlarged more to give the same size image. To get maximum depth of field then you should focus on a spot one third between the closest and furthest point you want to be sharp. Depth of field extends one third in front and two thirds behind the point of focus. (There are exceptions to this rule but are not relavent in this case.) I'm a little concerned about the overall sharpness of both images presented. In your image editor you should add a LITTLE sharpening AFTER you have reduced the image to fit with forum requirements. There's also the difference in colour balance of your images. Again this should be corrected in your image editor - using 'white balance'. I would use the white on the cow's back (bottom left of image) to set. ALWAYS save your edits to a different file name and leave your original in its native state.

After a night's sleep, I wonder if the unsharpness may be due to slight camera shake - and I mean slight. A lorry driving past your home could cause it. The first job I had in photography was at a photographer's on the corner of Winifred Ave and Albany Road. We'd get very slight camera shake whenever a train passed by on either the Coventry - Birmingham or Coventry - Nuneaton lines. In the end we resorted to doing the technical photography in the evenings when the rest of the staff had gone home and there was very little traffic passing down Albany Road. So Philip, when you're taking pics of the model ask the missus to turn off the vacuum cleaner

In the days of plate cameras the photographer didn't look 'through' a viewfinder, he/she examined the image on the ground glass screen. We can do the same today, albeit on a smaller scale, with the electronic viewfinder ot rear LCD screen. A problem that we have is that we have a brain. That often fills in what we expect to be there - but isn't. Also that our eyes come in pairs rather then the single lens of the camera. If you put your head in the same position as the camera in the above picture then you would see the front radiator grille of the coach - the camera doesn't. So, don't be fooled by your own eyes and brain. CHECK what the camera sees.

Please also remember that the forum uploading process allows a maximum image size (along it's longest side) of 700 pixels - so depending on the original size of the photo there could be a fair amount of reduction (and therefore re-processing) in the size of the final image we see displayed here, resulting in an unavoidable reduction in final image quality no matter how good the original or what camera and/or technique used to capture it. For the most part, this forum is a wonderful tool in what it does, although it may not be the best place to display and critique high-quality digital images.

There are other issues too, I think. Philip may be being beaten by his equipment, I notice in his 'still' collections that he has some very good, clear close-ups where there is no evidence of camera shake at all. The camera handles it very well, but he is working in quite a small area where the longer shots are not as good.

Consumer cameras are set up to handle an object or person which is three to five feet away where background is not important or to capture a scene which is essentially over thirty feet away. Philip's environment falls between the two unless in close-up mode.

Camera shake is difficult to overcome unless the camera is on a very stable platform, and this does not include cheap, flimsy tripods, and one has use a remote release. Again, new cameras fall short having no facility for a remote release, be it a cheap cable release or a wireless remote (hugely expensive assuming availability), and large heavy tripods might need more room than the 'station master' can reasonably accommodate.

Hi all & thank you When I am recording indoor railway pics, the camera is mounted on a telescope tripod, very solid & so as to further reduce shake, I use the delay facility on both cameras.