“Hi Al,
I was playing around with my camera yesterday and decided to try some high speed shots. They were ok so today I fixed some cotton wool in the chimney and safety valves. The camera is only a cheap one so clarity is not perfect, but it was fun and they look fine to me, what do you think?
Thanks Al, its a great service your giving.
Alan”
A big thanks to Alan – just loved the imagination behind the pics.
And when it comes to imagination, have a look at these printable buildings.
You could make a gazillion buildings from this one print. Of course, I’m biased, but I think it’s genius. What layout isn’t crying out for some scenery like it?
Here’s another sweet offer too. You get every building for $6. And as you can see from the pics, that’s less than a $1 a building.
So if you want to have a muck about with some scratch building, now’s another good time to give it a whirl. You get every buildings, for just $6, but only until Monday.
Have a look – they are here. And I’ll bet your layout could use one too.
You also get his latest house thrown in free too – all for $6:
Keep ’em coming.
Best
Al
Very nice photos indeed! Look like real. 🙂
These are superb.
Well done Alan they look great! How did you do it?
Yes that cotton wool works good , used it myself in the past, you can even add a bit of grey on to the wool …Dave
Fantastic! Just like the real thing! Now for someone to come up with a belching black cloud diesel loco!
Nice,can we see more?
Wow, nice effect with speed & smoke. Does your camera do video?
Hi Al ,love your website.
There are some amazing people out there , and Dave is as good as any
Please keep them coming
I LIKE THE rod2-8-0, HOW did you weather it?
Please share.
Nicely done Alan. Yes, the cotton can produce a nice effect; even better and more realistic because you added the fast motion background blur.
These days I’ve gone a bit more high tech by using digital photo imaging software to “paint” in smoke effects on photos. But your tried-and-true technique using cotton is still very effective and so much faster and less complicated.
Arnie
Hi Al,
Thanks a lot for your wonderful ideas.
Gilles (from Belgium)
Hey Alan, Man, I got dizzy just watching them go by. Outstanding work!
I would like to see more photo’s like this, very good. You must of had fun doing this.
Thank you Al for your web site. The photos are realy good.
Great photos. Ingenious.
Cameron
Great photos and nice real try Alan.
Bedros
Nice to see a Fowler 7F 2-8-0 here.
They were built for the long-closed S&DJ line that is just a few hundred yards from where I now work.
Looks great
Very nice…..
Gary M
Like the pics that’s a cool idea to try look pretty realistic thanks for sharing Chris
Really nice technique and great quality. The pictures do look very real
They look great and I love how you did the “steam”, but to be honest an iPhone 11 Pro can do the same thing with it’s portrait (bokeh) setting. No need for a fancy camera (just fancy phone I guess….)
I think they look awesome!
Great detail and imagination!
Nice photos, one possible technique to make the locos appear more in fo cus would be to use rear curtain flash which fires the flash just before the shutter closes so you get the background blur. You have to experiment with the strength of the flash so you don’t obliterate the background. You might want to enlist a photographer friend to help and many of those guys would love to experiment with the techniques.
If you want diesel smoke, why don’t you just dye the cotton charcoal grey or black, let it dry, and use the same method.
Alan, this is a mighty display of speed using your still image camera. I love it and it gives me a sense of excitement to do the same thing with my Euro-train once i get it running. Watching it by eye, much like your engines inspired you, gives the viewer a taste…just a taste…of what it would look like in real life and real scale.
A couple folks commented on your ‘cotton’ smoke which looks quite nice as it bugs down to the locomotive cab..:quite nice. On the one point of flash use for crisper image, use of the flash, if fast enough, produces a “strobe” effect giving you a ‘still’ image at the time of the flash. Under these conditions, your image should be as sharp as an actual still while still moving. The trick is matching camera shutter speed, which should be quite fast, with a rapid flash…most digital camera flash speeds and shutter coordination are good enough… along with hands-free image capture will provide a really nice image. One person mentioned ‘backflash.’ This will, as stated keep your background blur.
Nice job!