Back in 2001, MRN Publisher Mike Lindsay and I had a discussion on using digital cameras to improve our workflow. The fact was, at that date, our entire magazine was being sent through a digital image setter which turned it into negatives from which plates were made. This means that every single thing printed in the magazine was digital — text, photos, art — all of it.
At that point in time, much of our photography was conducted in traditional silver-based film and then scanned over into digital. Digital cameras of five years ago were not what they are today, but they were good enough to at least merit serious thought. We started taking our product photos in digital and never turned back. We got better photos in a manner that was both faster and cheaper; it was like the improvement of diesel over steam in 1950. Just as I find steam locomotives fascinating and desirable in small quantities, I have my old 8x10 view camera on display in my office.
Middle — The middle image is a single exposure focused on the third driver of the front engine but the lens is opened up to ƒ16. Lighting is improved and the narrow band that is in focus is really very sharp. Unfortunately, the pilot is out of focus and the tender is soft enough to make a plush stuffed toy.
Bottom — The bottom image represents a fairly recent development in digital photography. To make this work, I had my camera on a tripod where I shot seven photos, the first one with the pilot the focal point and then moving that focal point back along the locomotive to the very back. I then loaded these photos in focal order from front to back in an application called “Focus” from Helicon (http://helicon.com.ua/heliconfocus/). Through some bit of digital magic, Focus took the in-focus portion of each shot and spliced it with the others in turn. This created the image you can see here, in focus from front to back, using the lens’ greater sharpness at ƒ16.
With this editorial is an illustration of three images of the same Bachmann N-scale 2-6-6-2 USRA Mallet. All three shots were taken using the same Canon Digital Rebel and umbrella strobe flash units. The lens was set at 80mm in Macro mode.
The big challenge, of course, is the focusing. Autofocus must be turned off and the photographer needs to have acquired the skill of working a focal point. That big old view camera taught me a lot about that, though I never had the option of using something like Helicon’s “Focus” software to beat up on depth-of-field problems. I also never used it to shoot jewel-like model locomotives.
The entire process was quick and fairly easy. Our colleague, Stephen Priest, introduced this software to us, and he is using it in his “Project Railroad” series in our magazine. As these little miracles of technology come along, we’ll use them. After all, why should any important detail be out of focus?