I have only been in the model railroading... and railfanning... for about two years. I am building my layout which is called the Brisbane & Bushong RR. I've got a pretty good inventory of locos and rolling stock. Besides collecting and running the trains I enjoy photographing them. Most of my photos have been taken with a rather simple Olympus C-765. And... a lot of them came out OK.

I was blessed enough this July to get a really good camera for my wedding anniversary. It is a Nikon D80 with an 18-135 mm zoom lens. It has a lot more "bells and whistles" on it. If anyone has something similar, I would like to know some of the tips and tricks for using this camera to take good quality pics of my different trains and areas on my layout.

The first batch I took I left the camera on "auto" and the pics were not as good as with my simple camera. What manual settings are recommended for close-up shots where you do not use the flash, etc?

Any help would be greatly appreciated. In the mean time I am reading the 1/2" thick owner's manual that came with it.

Thanks,

Matt (boin106)
Brisbane, CA

1) Get a tripod.
2) Balance for the appropriate white balance (See your manual).
3) Try using available light over a flash.
4) Use some white fill cards to reflect light into the dark areas.
5) Try using different ISO's on your camera, many of the digital camera support high ISO's (800+) with very little noise.
6) If you have to use a flash, get it off the camera and try different angles
7) Use smaller apertures to get depth of field, but do not stop down all the way

Number one thing is steady! Use a tripod or something similar to hold the camera. Related to that is to use a shutter release instead of your finger if possible.

Low viewing angle is, usually, better than the airplane-based photo.

Compose the picture using the viewing screen. This will possibly help identify distracting items from the shot for removal or slight repointing of the camera.

Wide angle is more forgiving of focusing issues than telephoto and less subject to vibration.

With a digital camera, take plenty of shots. Unlike film days, extra shots have zero incremental cash cost.

Auxiliary lighting can help.

Thanks for the help. I've got a tripod. And... I have extra lighting. I just trying to figure out what settings I can then use to take the phots WITHOUT the flash. On my little simple Olympus, I just put it on the tripod, put it on "auto" and timer and it took decent photos. I guess I just have to fool around with the settings.

Matt

All the above answers are right on. I have a Nikon D70s and I'm assuming your camera is an improved version on mine. I take very long time exposures so I get good depth of field. Some of my shots are 15 seconds long. Of course you must be on a tripod. It's very easy to set up your camera to do this. You can also hook your camera to a video monitor. This might help when your just beginning. Good luck. Don

I find this flexible mini-tripod product very handy for oddly positioned close-ups:
http://www.joby.com/products/gorillapod/findmygpod/

Experiment with a wide range of aperture (f-stop) settings -- looks like on your nikon, using the "A" position on the mode wheel activates aperture priority mode. This lets you manually select an aperture size and the camera will adjust its shutter speed accordingly to try to get the best exposure possible. A smaller aperture setting (larger f-stop #!) will give you a longer depth of field -- things close and far away will all be in focus -- but it lets less light in so the shutter must stay open longer. Opening up the aperture really wide (smaller f-stop #!) will let you get more light in, and will give you a very short depth of field -- that's how some of the pictures you may have seen here have the front of the locomotive in sharp focus, but then the background rapidly blurs out as you look farther down the train.

Experimenting with different shutter speeds (S on the wheel -- the opposite of what I described above) will let you play with motion blur. A slow shutter speed will require a steady camera to prevent camera shake blur, but will let you record an image of a clear background with a blurred train streaking by if you want to. It will also let more light in, resulting in a lighter picture.

I guess a good parallel is that aperture size is like the diameter of a pipe water is flowing through, while shutter speed/exposure time is like how long you hold the valve open for.

Fiddling with ISO settings adjust the sensitivity of the camera's sensor.. higher numbers mean it is more sensitive to light, so it will let you get better pictures with less light and a less steady camera (i.e. handheld). The tradeoff that Chris touches on above is that as the sensor is more sensitive to light, it is more susceptible to "noise" -- could be described as faint static or fuzziness in the image. A lower ISO setting will let you get the cleanest picture possible, but will require more light / a steadier camera.

If you specifically want to not use a flash indoors, your options are to boost the ISO, lengthen the shutter times, and/or open the aperture up farther.

If you want everything in focus in a low light shot, then go for a slow shutter speed (long exposure time) as Don mentions, and a tight aperture as Chris mentions (though this will mandate an even longer exposure, so you'll definitely need the tripod) and possibly a higher ISO as well.

If you want a specific item in focus and everything else blurred out in a low light shot, (a common technique when you want to draw attention to a specific item, often used in portraits or macro photography), go for a wide aperture (which will shorten the depth of field, but also let more light in), a boosted ISO, and possibly a slower shutter speed.

If you want the background in focus but the train to be streaking past, set the camera for shutter priority, set the speed way low, crank the iso up, and a smaller (higher #) aperture.

I would suggest setting up a test shot and taking it repeatedly, with a sequence of 4 or 5 different aperture settings, and then 4 or 5 shutter speeds, then comparing the results you get... it's a good starting exercise to familiarize yourself with a new SLR. Hope this makes some amount of sense, I'm typing it around a hungry baby at the moment.

Here's a few web tutorials that might explain these concepts better:
http://www.all-things-photography.com/digital-slr.html

(make sure to check out the "DSLR photography tips" box at the bottom of the page)

Bean bag type camera rests are also very good for taking layout level shots. They relatively inexpensive and come in all different shapes and sizes. Here's one of the ones I use.

One other thing to consider as you jump to a dslr from your point and shoot. Post processing. Most point and shoot cameras do most of this work for you. The main element being sharpening. Straight out of the camera a lot of dslr images will "look" softer (and in this case look worse to many viewers) than those taken with the P+S. One way to do this is unsharp mask in Photoshop. (I have always used the full version, but there must be something similar in Elements if thats all you have). I now have two controls to do this in Apertuere 2. Sharpening and Definition. As you become more comfortable with your camera and your editing software you may want to shoot in RAW instead of jpeg. You will have a lot more control to fix things like blown out highlights or lost details in the shadows. Before I got my Canon 40D I purchased a Canon S5 IS, and at first I thoguht my images were not as good as my cheaper A95 - the camera just wasn't doing as much processing itself. My 40D does even less work, but my pictures are really much better, once I run them through a little post processing.

You may also want to consider a remote wireless release.
http://www.adorama.com/CZDRD80RDX.html?sid=1216850398554974

Tripod

Remote release is important.

Rule of thirds helps

Make your viewing angle close to the eye level of "people" on your layout.

No flash!

Use photography lighting

Use the Depth of Field setting on your camera if you have it.

Try to get a shot of all trains and scenery without the surrounding room

I suggest a camera with good image stabilization.

Bill wrote

quote:

Try to get a shot of all trains and scenery without the surrounding room

. Boy is that true. Everytime I see a layout shot that captures part of the room I find myself peeking into all the corners. It's just human nature I guess.

quote:

Originally posted by GarySeven:
I suggest a camera with good image stabilization.

Image Stabilization actually works against you if you use a tripod (make sure to turn it off) I love it for handheld when I shoot concerts.

Wow cbojanower! How does IS work against you?

quote:

How does IS work against you?

I did not believe it myself; however, their are quite a few photo mags that describes the mechanics of this issue. To add what the others have told you, Matt, I use the highest F stop I can > than 16 and I use bounce flash off the ceiling (or I have light boxes with their own tripods). Unless I am doing it professionally, hand held with a high F stop and fast enough shutter speed to avoid movement, the fastest ASA the camera has, and a bounce flash will usually suffice for ad hoc photos.
Example of standing on ladder at Tony Lash's layout using the above.

Wow... all great suggestions and first steps towards getting some great layout shots. Next thing ya know... I'll be with National Geographic!

Thanks again,
Matt (boin106)
Brisbane & Bushong RR

In lieu of a remote release, use your self timer. It gives the camera a chance to settle down after pressing the shutter release - important for longer exposures.

There's some good stuff here. Should be a sticky.

You can be content in the knowledge that pictures of your layout will be better than pictures of my layout.

quote:

Originally posted by GarySeven:
Wow cbojanower! How does IS work against you?

The way it was explained to me in a couple of different seminars was that IS is looking for movement, so when there is none it moves a bit anyway.

My owners manual for the Canon Lenses I bought last year says" Do not set the image stabilizer switch to 'I' when using the camera on a tripod. Doing so may cause the image stabilizer to act erratically. Turn the image stabilizer off before using the camera on a tripod. "

Now have I forgot to, yes I have, but why take the chance.

Here is a couple brief article about it, however like everything else on the internet there are differing opinions. As I teach my students in my motorcycle class, read your Owners Manual for all the info.

http://digital-photography-school.com/blog/image-stabilization-on-tripods/

It is worth noting that some of the new Higher end lenses have a IS mode for tripods.

http://www.dlcphoto.com/TripodAndIS.htm

As I learned about in my first year of Photography school about using the smallest aperture possible, you may get more depth of field from using f16 or f22, however the lens is generally sharpest in the middle ranges. So if you can avoid stopping down all the way you can get sharper images.

Also on digital camera the more you stop down, the more likely sensor dust is to begin appearing on your images. If you try an experiment you will see what will happen.

Set your lens to manual focus, set the focus to about 5 feet and shoot towards the sky. Start at f2.8 or f4, and shot a frame at each full stop until f22 or your max . Import the images and view each one at 100 or 150%, see what what grows on your image as the aperture gets smaller. This is dust sitting on your sensor.

This message has been edited. Last edited by: cbojanower,

Here's a pick I took with my Olympus C-765:


Here's one I took with my fancy Nikon D80:


So... you can see I have a lot of learning and exploring to do with the Nikon. I will try your "shooting the sky" technique and examine the pics. Thanks for all the help. I did snap some shots of real trains with my Nikon and they came out nice. I have a UP rail yard about 5 minutes from my house. I had to try out the new Nikon toy.

Matt

quote:

Originally posted by cbojanower:
As I learned about in my first year of Photography school about using the smallest aperture possible, while you may get more depth of field from using f16 or f22, the lens is generally sharpest in the middle ranges. So if you can avoid stopping down all the way you can get sharper images.

Also on digital camera the more yo stop down, the more likely sensor dust is to begin appearing on your images. If you try an experiment you will see what will happen.

Set your lens to manual focus, set the focus to about 5 feet and shoot towards the sky. start at f2.8 or f4, and shot a frame at each fill stop until f22 or your max . Import the images and view each one at 100 or 150%, what what grows on your image as the aperture gets smaller

cbojanower

Matt, hopefully with a new camera you will have very little dust. My Nikon D70 stayed pretty clean, but my Canon 5D is a notorious dust magnet. A few of the newer camera actually have a dust cleaning pulse prior to the image being taken. Not sure if yours does, but don't get all nervous about the dust, just take care to dust the camera lightly before quickly changing the lens.

A couple on ideas on your image,


It was taken at 1/60th of a second at f 4.8 and ISO 200,and you used a flash. It was taken at 9:50 AM, July 22.. cant guarantee that time, it may be an import time. I would try to stop down to about f8 or 11, no flash (Use ambient) and see what the exposure time is like. Maybe raise your ISO to 800 and use a tripod.

Remember to pic a focus point near the front and remember the old guidelines for depth of field, you get about 1/3 of the foreground and about 2/3 of the background in focus, You might also want to check out this online DOF calculator http://www.dofmaster.com/dofjs.html

The cyan cast is caused by the white balance. There are several ways around this. You can use some of the manual presets instead of Average White Balance or do like I do and shoot in RAW format (NEF on your camera) instead of jpg and then correct it using software such as Adobe Lightroom or Photoshop or if on a Mac iPhoto or Aperture.

Just for kicks I brought your image into Lightroom and cleaned it up a bit,it took about 1 minute. I cant help the focus, but there is no more cyan.