robmcg

Tony, you have thrown down the gauntlet. Again. Such phenomenal depth-of-field and realistic perspective, I am going to try to approach this with my Canon half-frame EOS-M and lenses, but suspect I will struggle to match the full-frame Nikon Df and 55mm micro at some impossible F-stop... But I shall try! Here is your photo cropped I suspect that superlative optics, using TIF format and full frame will give you the edge, but I have ways! Actually, in .ight of the differences between EM and 00 I did just for fun 'convert' Little Bytham to EM just to see what difference it might make. The next two photos might show how little it matters... 00 A guess at EM... apologies that it's guesswork, my physics teacher at school would not have approved. In fact my teachers tended to think of me as something of a trouble-maker, not concentrating, laughing too much, and so on. The aforementioned physics teacher berated me in front of a laboratory class for writing lab results on a scrap of paper, rather than in a tidy manner in an exercise book. But teachers nevertheless gave me high marks in a fiercely competitive school environment, even a 'first' in Additional Maths. I rather liked that subject, with in those days measurements in feet and pounds, with latin abbreviations... p = ma or v2 = u2 + 2as all ft lbs and hp and so on, when the world taught Latin, and many kids had even read Thomas Hardy and Dickens.. So I apologise in advance for guessing what Little Bytham would look like in EM gauge.

Further to my reference to 1950s and 60s photos and magazines, here is a current Bachmann 9F at speed, re-numbered and edited, similar inspiration was derived from 'Model Railway News' with a G F Heiron cover showing a 9F from a low angle, albeit in beautiful colour. Were some of his paintings oils over a photographic template?

Just shows the level of skill of our best photographers before the age of colour. Myriad skills involved. I too spent many an hour in photo darkrooms, and as I understand it there are a few hardy souls who still create images that way. I stopped doing serious large b+w about 1993. But it took until about 2010 before digital cameras became the equal of a good 6x6 or 35mm Leica.

Black and white photos represent the reality of railways from the 1940s and 50s, at least inasmuch I imagined them from reading 'The Railway Magazine' and many others of the time. I was lucky to have a father who not only worked for the NZ Railways but was a prolific writer and editor, so afternoons when school finished were often occupied reading such things. Lying on the floor in a patch of sun with a library of books about the walls, back to bound volumes from 1923-on, no wonder I like Britain. Model Railway News, Trains Illustrated, theUS Kamblach 'Trains', and more. Early colour images weren't bad if Kodachrome II transparencies but in print? Quite poor at times. I never learned the art of colour printing, too exact in processing, too poor in results! G F Heiron paintings were great though on the cover of Model Railway News. I think I have that right, c1964? Nowadays colour is so nearly universal it makes the subtleties of b+w white rather refreshing, and certainly 'of the age'. I associate colour largely with heritage railways now, and my 'real' 1950s trains will mostly be black and white. I mean, what would one make of a full colour Eric Treacy Liverpool Lime Street study? Long live the subtleties of tonal gradation and warmth or otherwise of different papers. Remember 'Brovira Rapid' and 'Portriga Rapid' Agfa papers? They were beautiful in texture and tone, double weight, semi-gloss, exhibition quality!

I agree about the Bachmann lining and in fact Silver Sidelines' photo looks more glossy to me on the Bachmann model than any of the many I own. That might be the lighting however. Here is another of TMC value-weathered 60512 'Steady Aim' in ordinary room lighting. Minor assembly faults might be detected. I closed the engine-tender gap a tad with editing. I remain staunchly of the view that this is simply brilliant RTR engineering for the price , let down in some cases by poor assembly, But not I hasten to add in any of the four I have bought. This quality and fragility has been apparent on many recent Hornby steam loco models, ever since about 2006 ? with the Standard 4MT 4-6-0s and is unsurpassed even today with production and cost issues remaining problematic, detail and quality is higher than ever if you look at the J36 or Merchant Navy or Princess models. Roll on the 9F ! Few on this thread give credit for the outstanding wheels, motion, small production run differences, and the myriad skills required to brings these amazing models to market. hurrumph

Ah, you are no doubt correct, I shall amend my caption accordingly, thankyou. For what it's worth here is the A2/3 model 'out of the box', without the compression I did in the Nottingham Victoria picture... cheers

Thanks, but the perspective on the tender was compressed by 20% lengthways to match the rather wide-angle perspective of 500 in the original photo, more-or-less, and the slight bend in the brake rod was accentuated. I manually replaced the parts of the image around the axle boxes on the tender to restore some of their shape, but was too fast and lazy thus the wheels themselves look 'out'. I have subsequently fixed it a little. All wheels were on the track in my original photo. I have only run the engine on straight code 75 so cannot comment on derailments, I find it hard enough just to get all the wheels on these A2s on the track. Here is one solution... I shall enjoy colouring these gentlemen... Nottingham Victoria, shall we say 1952 and rationing has finished. Oops, no, soon to finish... 1954 would be more likely Actually in colour although the men look fine it is clearly a model and to my eyes they look contrived so I'm leaving them out in the colour versions, unless asked.

Proof positive that Hornby got their A2 colours right...

Makes you wonder why Hornby don't produce a half-decent version of these engines... I have of course done this in colour too, but you can only take suspension of disbelief so far. Grateful thanks and acknowledgements to JP Wilson for the original photo of LNER 500. Will remove if required. There's a lot to repair in this rough picture, it was done rather quickly, and the perspective of original was not easy to reproduce.

I agree, and you can have a less-shiny BR version from similar angle even today. picture slightly edited will remove if required. I'm looking forward to the LNER green... and the lining, on the forthcoming models.

If the new 9F has anything like the quality of the new A2s in terms of fine detail, finesse, and also were to receive good assembly, I shall simply have to buy one or two. I had rather thought it would be hard to surpass the Bachmann model, which I think superb, but Hornby do have a knack of making the detail just that little bit finer... and sometimes more fragile. Hornby's 3D moulds look brilliant.

It may well be possible to over-indulge in Thompson Pacifics, but I bravely go where few dare to tread, risking a condition known as 'Thompson's Ague'.... onwards I stride towards the broad sunlit uplands of engineering perfection, a place where all con-rods are made equal, wrought in the furnaces of justice and truth.... where no steam shall escape... Oh dear, nurse, the pills aren't working. Again. Moving quickly along, I have been playing with a different lens for my camera, seeking to go where no man has gone before, I have experimented in finding maximum depth-of-field for my Canon EOS-M with an adaptor and EF-S 50mm lens... using F32 and 20 sec exposure. I have also bought an 18-55mm macro lens, yet to arrive. There is much to be discovered. Here are a few results. I have cheated and shamelessly drawn lines under the printed names on the deflectors, imitating a real plate. Do not be fooled. The third (more side-on) pic is with my usual EOS-M 18-55mm standard zoom lens, the 3/4 views are with the EF-S 1.8 50mm. Oddly I discovered during this experiment that the zoom lens will go to F36 at 55mm... I have only owned the camera for six years, I am a mere strapling, still learning. Normally for 3/4 front views I blend two or three exposures together, but a bit more depth-of-field never goes amiss. The above are all single shot photos. Tony Wright achieves phenomenal results with a Nikon Df full frame and 50mm and 55mm micro lenses which so far as I can divine from the secret language of photo experts is the same as 'macro' lens for lesser brands. Probably wrong again... but we shall see, by actual experimentation. How nice to have this A2/3 60512 'Steady Aim' on which to practice. Given that I incline to the 'glass half full' view of the world I think the Hornby A2 is superb.... the above is a TMC 'value weathering' version at 20 quid extra. I may have been lucky with the four A2s I have bought, all have been excellent. Pictures slightly edited.

I think Hornby may be reaching new heights with this one... state-of-the-art RTR manufacturing?

I haven't followed all the rules around here. I have bought four A2s now, an A2/2 and A2/3 from Kernow and a different A2/2 and different A2/3 from TMC with value weathering. No faults in any of them except a broken coupling on the tender of 60523. Here is my latest arrival.. one tender axle astray, sorry Four out of four is as good as I've ever had from Hornby, but by all accounts I must have been very lucky? The photo is not edited. All run well straight from the box albeit only on a short test track.

Thanks Tony, you have the patience of an .... um, teacher. I bought a few good Canon glass lenses to fit via an adaptor to my half-frame Canon EOS-M and the resulting 50mm becoming via the adaptor something nearer 85mm (in effective 35mm sensor full frame) but the results though sharp did not please me. I became lazy and used the convenience of the small EOS-M body and an 18-55mm zoom lens (effectively I think about 32-90mm if full frame). This has given a lot of latitude in setting up and framing and yes, placing the camera back a little and subsequently cropping a little is a very useful trick if you have sufficient image quality to begin with. Interesting stuff and thanks again. The one thing I didn't do was explore the options in micro lenses.

I love the D11 not least because of its heroic exploits on the Great Central, and I have several including weathered LNER and BR versions, lovely models! Here if permitted are a couple of edited portraits... the LNER celebrating the incedible feats of the class on impossibly tight schedules on the London Extension in the 30s. 3 minutes for a stop and little more to remove a van or add one. I think W A Tuplin wrote of these things. Of course I have few Scottish D11s too... Such great engines.

As well as perspective, the photo shows the astonishing depth-of-field you achieve with good lighting, good cameras and good lenses. The A2 is just out of sharpness at the front but this again is prototypical. Could you repeat for me (please, I wasn't paying sufficient attention when you last wrote it) the cameras and lenses used? It brings to mind the great photos of Eric Treacy, W J V Anderson and others who tended to use very good lenses and cameras and above all knew their characteristics and limits. I still don't know how they got so much of the fleeting sunshine moments! When I took photos of steam trains in the 60s the conditions would be perfect but the train late, or the train was on time and the sun would go behind a cloud at the critical moment... apologies to Cartier-Bresson....

I too am no great fan of long threads of 'favourites', or 'which is best', so it is no problem to remove my meandering thoughts. I will take advantage of this excellent thread to show a computer-altered picture of a Hornby model... 60029 'Woodcock', which may at times have passed through Little Bytham at a fair speed. No problems with Hornby green in this light. May I take this opportunity to thank you Tony for your input into the detail of the new Hornby Thompson Pacifics, because whatever the shortcomings of the prototypes all three of the examples I have received so far here in NZ have been excellent. Beautiful models. A great part of the ECML and the age of steam.

Yes, mea culpa. I shall edit and withdraw the question.

So many contenders for the name 'genius', but I was thinking only of C20th British CMEs. When Chapelon, or the Pennsylvania K4 come into it, or even Webb, it does become complex, and I left Bulleid out because the SR Pacifics leaked and slipped and caught fire, by which time he had moved on, and the full rebuild seemed the most practical thing after 1955.. I still like the SR Pacifics more than any other for purely subjective reasons, the 1966-67 high speeds were the last high speed steam services in the world so far as I know... and I had reasonable camera aged 16 years, so I really 'felt' the nature of the era. For me a test is that a designer stands head and shoulders above others in terms of ability on several fronts. I put a few of my pictures of Chapelon engines up some time ago somewhere on RMweb and several viewers were bemused by the number of pipes and the other ephemera on the exterior of the engines. edited to remove irrelevant musings.

For what it's worth the Merchant Navy engines come as mentioned with manufacturer's code LOT .... the A2/3 I have just received has code GFT .... presumably the same as A2/2s.

Two more portraits of Thompson A2/3 60523 'Sun Castle' with diagram 118 boiler c1960, I think the engine looks very good. Certainly the model is outstanding. To me, in the types of light of the kind encountered in prototypical situations it looks brilliant. Photos edited.

Churchward, Stanier, Gresley, Riddles... the last for his ability to herd all the big four plants into some semblance of order, rather like herding cats.

I hope you don't mind Hastings Thumper, I put your picture through Picasa photo editor and made it a bit clearer, on my screen anyway. What a super model! I see that the dreaded front lamp brackets look close to vertical on yours, overall such a fine model! I must be sure that when I try to tweak mine forwards I take great care and chose a warm room. Otherwise there will be a route disc installation!

Just for fun I did a screen shot of your 35024 and ran it through Picasa, with slightly better detail... hope that's ok. The blue in the photo is comparable to Kernow's .... and I am pleased that my version is on its way. Cheers