Railfan Technology > Smartphone cameras.....

What would be the best option (or setting) to shoot and Ho scale display about 4ft long in outdoor light? I get fairly good shots of the first locomotive but nearly everything else is blurred! Am I just shooting TOO close?

Txtrainman60 Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> What would be the best option (or setting) to
> shoot and Ho scale display about 4ft long
> in outdoor light? I get fairly good shots of the
> first locomotive but nearly everything else is
> blurred! Am I just shooting TOO close?

Depth of field is too shallow because you're too close and the lens is at wide angle, letting in lots of light and your aperture/f no.  is low. Walk away and zoom in to increase your f no. and therefore depth of field.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 02/24/21 11:37 by exhaustED.

For a smartphone, I'd recommend investigating focus stacking apps.

There's a reason Art Schmidt used a 4x5 view camera to photograph models back in the early Model Railroader days. You're going to need a lot of technology to overcome the (optical) limitations of a smartphone.

Arved Grass
Fleming Island, FL

I use Helicon Focus to "focus stack" a series of images taken from my smart phone mounted on a tripod.  It seems to work relatively well.

Cheers,
Harry

Put a LOT of light on the subject, and the camera will respond by tightening up the aperture, giving you much better depth of field. Outdoors is good, a ripping-bright studio light on a light stand is better. A half-assed floodlight from Home Depot helps at least a little. 

You actually have a lot going for you, using a camera phone. The lenses in those phones have really, really short focal lengths (that's how they can fit them into a smart phone case). That in itself helps a lot with depth of field. 

Depth of Field is often a confusing issue. Hopefully, my years as a motion picture camera assistant, where my job security rested on my understanding DOF, will lend some credence to what I say.
The basic definition of DOF is: "The area in front and back of the focus plane that is in acceptable focus"
DOF is a function of light physics and four values need to be known so that DOF can be calculated.
1. Size of the sensor/film
2. Focus distance
3. Lens mm
4. Lens aperture
Change the number of any of these and the other numbers are changed as well.
It is true that, generally speaking, wide-angle lenses have a broad DOF and telephoto lenses have a shallow DOF. Also, a low number f/stop means less DOF distance and high number means more. 
However, the last two statements are entirely based on what the focus distance is. You can have a wide-angle lens where there is no DOF and a telephoto with 1000's of feet of DOF.
That is because it all comes down to image size. Meaning this; if you shoot a head and shoulders portrait of a person and use a wide-angle lens at a particular f/stop then do the same head and shoulders shot with a telephoto lens and the same stop, you will have to move the camera further away, but by doing so, the DOF remains exactly the same.
Put another way, say you are doing a shot using a 50mm lens at 5' and f/2,8, and you want more DOF. What you do not do is change to a 25mm and move in to create the same size shot because if you do that, the DOF will remain exactly the same. If you wish more DOF for this shot, you need to increase your aperture number or by moving away from the subject.
Do know, while the DOF of these two scenarios remains the same, the perspective does change along with the feeling of the shot.
For model photography, yes, use the highest number f/sop possible. Using a wide-angle lens looks better than a telephoto because it creates a more natural, scaled-down perspective. Also, the use of a tripod is usually imperative for the best quality.
I have yet to use focus stacking but from what I have seen, it is a terrific tool for model photography. 
So the takeaway is not all wide-angle shots have wide DOF and not all telephoto shots have shallow DOF.
Have fun.

Dennis Livesey
New York, NY