Getting Started in Photography  -   Paul Templar

I am going to stick to the 35mm S.L.R (Single Lens Reflex) with manual focus, and the ability to place the f-stop yourself. Unfortunately, the Instamatic type camera, is not good enough to be able to take photographs to publication standard. You must be able to have the facility to stop the lens down to its smallest aperture :- f22 or f32 for the best depth-of-field. In other words, using f22 or f32, apart from the subject you have in focus at the time, objects in front of and behind will also have some degree of sharpness.

Please click on the images...

Photo Number 1 ( set at f3.5) shows the subject in focus, while the middle and background are out of focus. These photographs were taken focusing on the loco only, to prove a point. When taking photographs of your railroad, always try and focus on something in the middle, that way, nearly all of your photographs will be in some degree of sharpness.

Photo Number 2 ( set at f8) shows the subject in focus and a part of the middle in focus, whilst the background is still out of focus.

Photo Number 3 ( set at f22) shows the subject in focus, also the middle and background has a reasonable amount of clarity.

Okay, we now have the camera in mind, what about the lenses. With the S.L.R. you have the ability to be able to change to any kind of lens that takes your fancy, but for railroad photography, I personally use only two that are as follows. One 28-7Omm Macro-Zoom and one 28mm Wide-angle/Macro. With the 28-70mm lens, the effective aperture changes when using wide-angle Macro. The Zoom provides a range of f/3.5 to f22 at its shortest focal length :-: at its longest length from f/4.8 to f31. The other lens only goes to f22, but this is fine for getting sharp pictures in focus from front to back in most cases.( f32 would be better ) By the way, the light meter inside your camera will not be able to tell you how many seconds the exposure will take. Most model railroad photography is nearly always around the 2 to 6 second bracket depending on the film speed etc. (More about film speed and types of films later, i.e. prints and slides, colour )

Page 2