I went to the place where I bought the camera today and purchased one of these.

http://www.hahnel.ie/index.cfm?page=dslrremotecontrols&id=60&pId=60

As the D 7000 has no facility for a cable release.

It can do some amazing stuff with time lapse etc.

I spoke to the manager there of Photographic Wholesalers.

Anyway, what I suspected is true.  All that Auto and Scene is just rubbish.

I'm going to start again.  Set the ISO, focus, aperture and shutter speed and go from there.

Strictly manual from now on.  I've bought a couple of lamps as well.

There are some white balance and colour settings that I have to investigate also, but I'm starting from scratch.

Off to Photography Club shortly.

Cheers

Hi Max

A piece of matt white paper (A4 photo paper will do), light the scene with your lights, then fill the camera view finder image with the shot of the white placed ion the location you want to shoot. Now carry out the white balance setup.

If your exposure appears out, you can always get a standard grey card (16% grey I think - it is nearly 30 years since I did this), replace the white paper with the grey card and see what the auto expose reading is for the grey card. Set this exposure on the camera manual settings and see what the result comes out like.

And you just thought you were going to take some pictures :roll:

Paul

Thanks, Paul.  I think the number is actually 18%, but I take your point.

I'm having to take the shutter release back as the main unit sits in the flash gun holder.  They have a cheaper one which plugs right in.

Last night at Photography Club we had an evening on outdoor macro.  Amazing.  The lecturer has a camera like mine in his collection and he was able to show me how more of the buttons work.

I didn't want to go home.  :cool:

Photography is great fun Max but the learning curve can be mind boggling and, if you don't watch it, it can take over your life ……………..

Many years ago, I worked in a photographic studio in London in the advertising industry - we seldom went home ………..:roll::roll::roll::cheers

Thanks, Peter.  I made it home.  Now I don't want to go to work.  :roll:

OK.  Many apologies to all those who were offering assistance, as I had no idea what I was doing, so I was unable to give you any sensible answers to your questions.

I'm able to remedy that situation a little after having driven the camera club members crazy last night with 1000 dumb questions and spent most of the day experimenting.

Here's my victim . . .



Relatively easy to manage the depth of field issue while she's side on.

The challenge comes when we turn her quarter on.  Even though the loco is only 110 mm (7 1/2") long, the variation in distance of each end from the camera is significant.

This is the best shot so far in the experimental series . . .



ISO = 200

f = 36

Lens 18 - 105  =  105

Aperture priority

Distance from the camera to the centre of the loco = 500 mm

By varying the manual focus I could sharpen either end bogie at the expense of the other.

This was the best compromise.

Still not stunning, but OK.  It does lose a bit being uploaded, but I think I'm making progress.

Thanks for your interest.  :thumbs

You certainly are making progress Max. :thumbs

Just a thought - telephoto lenses tend to "forshorten" the image.  I'm not sure how that would effect this shot because it's not long distance.

The "standard" lens has a focal length of somewhere around 55mm.  I wonder what it would look like at that length ?  Obviously, you'd then have to crop the shot …………….:roll::roll:

Hi Peter

I started at 105 because that's what the club guys were suggesting.

What you're saying makes sense, so I might have another run at 50 tomorrow and see what happens.

If that's better, maybe I could go down even more.

I'm trying to get the best image I can before I start Photoshopping.

I can still jack up the ISO as well.  I think it goes up to 6400.  It didn't get noisy until about 5000 last night, so I think there may be some headroom there.

Cheers

You're there testing things Max but from here, I'd suggest you don't drop the focal length (not depth of field !!) much below the standard length of 50 to 55m otherwise you're entering the field of "wide angles" and that can quickly distort the image - I'm sure you remember those strange "fish-eye" images ………………:roll:


Similarly with the ISO (a modern combination of the older ASA and DIN for measuring a film's sensitivity to light).  The "slower" the film (or digital receptor), the cleaner the picture will be.  For "normal viewing", a higher speed with it's associated "noise" wouldn't be a problem but, with either heavy cropping or extreme close-up, you need the definition offered by a slow speed.  It doesn't take a genius to realise that dropping the ISO from your 200 to 100 would need twice the light (or the same light for twice the time) but, even with digital and your high quality lens, I'm sure you'd get better image quality if you keep to a slower ISO.

Without wishing to teach my grandmother, as a rough guide for quick calculations, each change in any of the camera settings will alter things by a factor of 2 ……a "good" exposure would require either half or double the light as you move from setting to setting - shutter speed, aperture or ISO setting.  Alter two of them simultaneously (in the same direction) and you'll need to change by a factor of 4.

All good stuff, Peter.

It reminds me of a wheel alignment I once did on a Volkswagen Khombi van.  Every time I moved one adjustment, every other one went out.  Spoiled for choice. 

I must have discarded fifty images to get those two.

[user=269]MaxSouthOz[/user] wrote:

I must have discarded fifty images to get those two.

I used to be like that with discarding women. I was into photography then too :shock:

OK Back to the business at hand . . .

Recommenced work on the stage.



culvert side.



rockface side.

Both sides are still drying.  Next is some vegetation.

Good work, Max.
The rock looks great.

Thanks, Pete.

A bit more progress.  The culvert side . . .

As you are better at this scenery lark than me, there is a full time job on the D&S for such a talented person.

:hmm   I wouldn't have thought I was better.  Yours looks great.

The ballasted track is beginning to look a bit 'tidy', Max.
I expect there is a bit more weedy scatter to come.
It's looking really good - the benefit of working on a restricted area in isolation.
I'm with Ron - it's up there with the best.

I'm with DD here Max.  The bank side looks fantastic.  I presume the track will be next …………..:roll:

When you've finished the scenery on the D & S, you could pop over here and do some of mine - in between chipping some of my locos ………….:cheers

Is this sceneic lark a steep learning curve ?  You've always said you can't do it.  I think either your bushel is very large or your light very dim …………:thumbs