Stoke Courtenay

[gwrrob]

4110 is a long time project as it was sat at Minehead for years and the P & D have just bought it off them.

[Barry Ten]

17 hours ago, checkrail said:

But the highlight for me was travelling in a 1937 C74 excursion stock open third, one of the two GWR coaches in the set along with the inevitable BR Mark 1s. (The other, as many of you will know, is a 1938 D127 van third.)  

 

 

(These coaches could do with some black & gold lining.)

 

 

Love the mirror!

 

John C. 

 

Black and gold lining was omitted from choc and cream at some point (early 30s?) so they're not necessarily inaccurate.

[checkrail]

31 minutes ago, Barry Ten said:

Black and gold lining was omitted from choc and cream at some point (early 30s?) so they're not necessarily inaccurate.

 

Yes, this was the case from 1927 when the panel lining and all the pseudo-panelling was dropped, but waist lining was re-instated very soon after (and doubled for a short period from 1930).  Perhaps they decided that no lining at all looked a bit too stark and minimalist. This was all some years in the past when these two were built.

[checkrail]

Nice recent pics of a pannier tank and B set by KNP over on Little Muddle (and my enjoyable trip behind  6412 last week) reminded me what a pleasing combination this is to the eye (with shades of Thomas, Annie and Clarabell coming to mind).  So, assuming no small prairies available due to multiple melt down, here's 3603 with the Earlsbridge branch train.

 

 

 

John C.

[checkrail]

And a few more.

 

John C.

[Anglian]

This layout is just so, so photogenic. I don't think I'll ever tire of seeing new images.

[westerner]

Excellent work/photos as usual.

[checkrail]

5975 Winslow Hall makes a re-appearance on this thread with a Plymouth-bound stopping train.

 

It's been quite a while since I posted anything - had a busy summer, with the limited amount of modelling time available largely spent on exorcising gremlins, e.g. dodgy decoders, petulant point motors etc.  But progress continues - slowly!

 

I bought the Affinity Photo package a couple of months ago, but have only found time to look at it in the last couple of days.  The main thing I wanted it for was to use the focus stacking or 'focus merge' tool to obtain a better depth of field.  I quite surprised myself by managing to make it work -  even though all technical manuals and tutorials are double-Dutch to me.  But I did find it quite a time-consuming palaver and am sure there are lots of short cuts I don't yet understand.

 

Anyway, the three following images are the results of my first experiments.  I'll get round to touching up the sky and stuff like that later!

 

4908 Broome Hall coasting through Stoke Courtenay with an up express.

 

5975 Winslow Hall emerging from the tunnel.

 

And finally, 4908 again, heading out of the station and past the water tower,

 

John C.

 

[Ramblin Rich]

Great to see you posting again, I was getting slightly concerned we'd lost you! I'm only looking at your pictures on a phone but they certainly look to have good depth.

[KNP]

Great set of pictures that are further enhanced with a full focal depth.

Time consuming, agree, but well worth the effort when the end result is seen.

 

Looking forward to seeing more.

[checkrail]

Only my third focus-merged image - not a quick process!  Here I was trying for a picture similar to Andy Y's cover photo on April's BRM, showing King Henry V emerging from the tunnel on a Penzance express.

 

One of the things I wanted to show was some recent weathering of 6019, courtesy of Grimy Times of Warrington, so here's the original of Andy's cover shot for comparison.

 

 

John C.

[Harlequin]

Great photo John! It's a definite improvement.

 

You might find a more powerful computer helps with the focus stacking. What sort of computer are you using at the moment?

 

Edited September 29, 2019 by Harlequin

[checkrail]

6019 again.  Keep thinking I should give the poor old thing a clean!

John C.

[gwrrob]

Pure filth on a wet Sunday afternoon John.

[checkrail]

And the final two, for now, of Henry V and train, my guinea pigs of choice for focus stacking practice.

 

Getting a better depth of field in the second pic shows up the thickness of the sides of the Bachmann late 30s Collett coaches.  Elderly now, but pretty good models for their day.

 

John C.

[AY Mod]

2 hours ago, checkrail said:

Here I was trying for a picture similar to Andy Y's cover photo on April's BRM

 

Nicely done John, you cracked the process!

[KNP]

Lovely pictures, focal depth great but they look on my monitor a bit dark.

Have a tweak with the ISO setting (mine is set on 200 but 400 could work) or plus a couple of stops on the exposure.

[AY Mod]

4 minutes ago, KNP said:

Have a tweak with the ISO setting (mine is set on 200 but 400 could work) or plus a couple of stops on the exposure.

 

I'd go the other way completely and keep the ISO at the lowest number, the aperture  f number as high as possible and just accept whatever exposure duration you are given.

[checkrail]

2 hours ago, Harlequin said:

You might find a more powerful computer helps with the focus stacking. What sort of computer are you using at the moment?

 I'm pretty sure you're right Phil.  This had occurred to me during my experiments.  Whenever I get to saving the penultimate frame of the 4K burst, prior to using the merge tool, I get told that 'something went wrong' (regardless of whether the 4K video was 20 frames or 40). Doesn't seem to make any difference to the result - I guess 29 frames are nearly as good as 30 - but it's all a bit slow.  I checked system capacity before installing but was probably pushing it a bit. Have had this old Lenovo laptop for a few years now.  Maybe time to treat myself.  Unless the Dapol mogul comes along first!

 

John C.

[AY Mod]

Of course, I had forgotten you and Kevin utilise the video frames. Am I correct in recalling you set the Mon and max focus points and the number of frames?

 

If I was taking 20 stills at 40mm increments for example I woul only get the software to blend frames 1,2,3,4,5,6,8,11,15,19 which effectively reduces the processing times.

[checkrail]

56 minutes ago, AY Mod said:

Of course, I had forgotten you and Kevin utilise the video frames. Am I correct in recalling you set the Mon and max focus points and the number of frames?

 

If I was taking 20 stills at 40mm increments for example I woul only get the software to blend frames 1,2,3,4,5,6,8,11,15,19 which effectively reduces the processing times.

 

Didn't know one could set min. & max. points - I just set 'post focus' to on, and press the shutter release.

 

Interesting to see the distribution of frames you use. Yes, that would speed it up.  as a novice I'm unsure how many frames I need to get the required result, so I just go for the max. number!

[Anglian]

Am I right in thinking that you can still get the same depth of field that image stacking allows if you set the camera on a tripod, set the ISO to as low number as possible, use high f setting then let the shutter remain open for as long as it needs to, thus ensuring everything is in focus or does it not work like that?

[martin_wynne]

7 minutes ago, Anglian said:

Am I right in thinking that you can still get the same depth of field that image stacking allows if you set the camera on a tripod, set the ISO to as low number as possible, use high f setting then let the shutter remain open for as long as it needs to, thus ensuring everything is in focus or does it not work like that?

 

In addition you need to manually focus about 1/3rd of the way into the scene. So if the scene extends from say 2ft in front of the camera to say 8ft in front of the camera, that's a scene depth of 6ft and you need to focus 1/3rd into it = 2ft into it. Giving a total focus setting on the camera of 4ft to the focus point.

 

That won't be as good as focus stacking, but not bad. There will probably be some out-of-focus foreground to crop away on the computer.

 

Set the highest F-number available, but there is no need to change the ISO setting. The default setting gives the highest quality images, and the shutter speed can be as long as it takes if the camera is firm on a tripod or resting on a bean bag or whatever. To use a faster shutter speed you would increase the ISO, not reduce it, but there is no need.

 

cheers,

 

Martin.

[checkrail]

There has been some sporadic modelling over the summer, and I've finally got to the end of my stash of unmade wagon kits.  All are now in service, though a handful of additions are planned.

 

Here's the branch goods, with a GW N30 loco coal wagon (Cambrian kit) returning empty from Earslbridge where it's been feeding the branch prairie.  Must make a removable coal load for it, so it can travel in the other direction too!  The adjacent van is a V4 Mink, the 7 ft 6" high version - I built one of the 8 foot type some months back.  Like that one, this is an old Cooper Craft kit.

John C.

[checkrail]

Next up is a GW iron mink from the good old Ratio kit that's been around for donkey's years. 

John C.