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Silohette Journals/Blogs
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Regular poster 156 posts steamfan1211 Regular poster 156 posts
steamfan1211

I've often seen photographs of trains in silohette with the sun setting behind them.

In various magazines I have also seen photos of models with nice sunsets in the background. The only problem is the that model is also well lit. In reality of course the model should be in silohette as the light is coming from the sunset / sunrise which is on the opposite side from the camera location. I decided to try recreating a silohette shot in model form. I have photoshop on my computer and enjoy playing around with model photos to try and add reality. To aid in this I also keep a collection of sky and scenery shots I and friends have taken.

To start with I set up the two Athearn locomotives on a section of track with a sheet of white styrene behind them. Then I shone a light on the white background which threw the locos into shadow. I took several photos and when I had one I liked I imported it into Photoshop and removed the white background and inserted the sunset photo from my files.

The result is below.

Sunset.jpg 

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Dave K skiloff Prolific poster 4,030 posts
Dave K skiloff

Love that shot!

At first glance, I wondered if it was a model at all.  Keep playing and posting, I say! 

Dave
Playing around in HO and N scale since 1976
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caboose14 Frequent poster 647 posts
caboose14

Very Nice

Great work! That's a keeper!

Kevin Klettke CEO, Washington Northern Railroad
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wnrr@comcast.net
http://wnrr.net
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SPSHASTAROUTE Regular poster 175 posts
SPSHASTAROUTE

Love that shot!  You have mad

Love that shot!  You have mad skills.  Photography is not my strong suit, so it's even more impressive to me.  The best part about the photo is that they are SP locos, IMO!

Mike Lozensky

Moder Railroader   Railroad Modeler
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steamfan1211 Regular poster 156 posts
steamfan1211

Light through the windows

Hi Michael,

Thank you for your comments. With regard to light through the windows the initial photo did have that but on looking at a number of protoype silohette shots it doesn't show through that much if at all so I blanked it out. An example is here and here. I think this could be put down to the number of obstructions in the cab or perhaps the angle. Anyway it is something to experiment with in future photos.

All the best
Michael (steamfan1211)

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rickwade Prolific poster (deceased) 6,447 posts
rickwade

Silohette

Steamfan,

WOW!  Very nice photo & great technique.  Thanks for sharing!

Rick

Rick

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The Richlawn Railroad Website - Featuring the L&N in HO  / MRH Blog  / MRM #123

Mt. 22: 37- 40
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steamfan1211 Regular poster 156 posts
steamfan1211

Camera, etc

Hi Michael,
I use a Canon EOS 400D. The picture was taken at ISO 160 with F/5.6 at 150th of a second. In this particular case I let the camera do it thing on automatic as I wasn't worried about depth of field. Normally I set the camera to manual and set the F stop to as high as I can usually between F/29 and F/32. As with the photo below.

I don't have a cable release for the camera so I set the camera on a tripod and use the self timing function so I am not touching the camera when the shutter operates. This removes the chance of camera shake.

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steamfan1211 Regular poster 156 posts
steamfan1211

Depth of Field

Hi Michael,
I think the camera you have does have a close up mode. Have you tried that? I suspect it isn't really designed for this sort of photography. You could try backing up from the subject and using the telephoto option. Keep the subject side on to the camera and try not to have too much depth in the photo.

As far as the photo of the UP Switcher is concerned I took that on the workbench with the loco sitting on a piece of ballasted track and a plain white background. Then I used Photoshop to put the industry in the background. I don't have any photostacking software although I believe it works well and would be great for photographing very deep scenes on a layout.

Michael (Steamfan1211)

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