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Post by ptc on Oct 31, 2021 23:41:55 GMT
Over the years, I have looked at hundreds of nighttime layout photos. Most are so dark that you can hardly make out the scenery. What's the point? Headlights on engines, good, lighted passneger cars, better, but that only stimulates just so much interest. Solution, add additional lighting to your layouts. One of the best solutions is street lights. However some are mostly decorative and do not emit much light. I use Lionel Gooseneck Street Lights and they do a super job of lighting the surroundings. Additional, there are many other lighting options that can enhance a layout for nighttime scenes. This photo shows what a difference good lighting can make. You can see the building fronts, vehicles and accessories. Hope this helps.
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Post by Deleted on Oct 31, 2021 23:52:58 GMT
Night picture. I agree bldg lights,signs, vehicles and street lights create a great scene.
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Post by rjsmithindy on Nov 1, 2021 0:07:10 GMT
Nighttime photos are tricky with my iPad. If not enough light, it looks “grainy”. This picture is of the Polar Express pulling into the station platform of our Department 56 Dickens Village a couple of Christmases ago. The lit buildings provided enough light to get a decent shot of the newly added PE drumhead.
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Post by rockymountaineer on Nov 1, 2021 2:09:57 GMT
Great thread, Brian!!! And that city scene of yours looks very impressive!
Bottom line… Good lighting is EVERYTHING in a train room.
One of the best investments I made when I wired my train room with track lighting was the Philips HUE "smart light" system. It was expensive in 2017 -- and still is almost 4 years later... but the results are pretty dramatic. The next step up from these kinds of lights would be to employ professional, theatrical lighting... which would be a MAJOR step up in price.
As it stands now, there are over 3-dozen light heads in the train room, consisting of wall-washers for the backdrops as well as BR30 and PAR16 bulbs overhead for flood and spot purposes. The smart lights are LED technology, so there's little energy consumed and the lights run cool as compared to the temps of a similar halogen-based technology. Every HUE smart-light can be programmed to illuminate any color desired for a given scene. By using my iPhone or iPad, different daylight, twilight and late nighttime scenes can be activated quickly and effectively with a couple of keystrokes.
In short, nighttime scenes are created by ADDING blue light to the scenes in varying degrees. So in essence, there's still a lot of "light" on the layout for twilight and nighttime scenes. However, it's BLUE/VIOLET light instead of the more traditional white light.
Take a look at some of these photos, and you'll get the idea.
The first set (Photos 1-6) have lighting programmed to simulate twilight / early nighttime scenes...
Photo1: Photo2: Photo3: Photo4: Photo5: Photo6: The second set (Photos 7-12) have lighting programmed to simulate scenes much later in the evening. Note however, that even in these scenes the room is never completely dark. Rather the amount of blue/violet light is increased significantly.Photo7: Photo8: Photo9: Photo10: Photo11: Photo12:
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Post by Zeke on Nov 1, 2021 2:40:05 GMT
These are great pictures guys! Nicely done in my opinion.
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Post by ptc on Nov 1, 2021 12:47:22 GMT
David takes night lighting to a whole new level. Spectacular!!!!!!
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Post by ptc on Nov 1, 2021 12:48:08 GMT
Rob. beautiful image of the PE Observation Car.
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Post by JDaddy on Nov 1, 2021 13:57:02 GMT
Sometime I will dim the lights for fill on certain photos.
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Post by JDaddy on Nov 1, 2021 14:00:38 GMT
Other photos look good with all the light out....
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Post by ptc on Nov 1, 2021 14:29:49 GMT
WOW, are members are the best. These are some of the best night images I have ever seen.
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Post by laz57 on Nov 1, 2021 21:03:09 GMT
Great shots GUYZ. DAVID OUTSTANDING!!!!👍👍👍👍
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Post by Country Joe on Nov 2, 2021 21:19:04 GMT
I have the lights in my train room on a dimmer switch. When I take night photos I dim the lights but don’t turn them off completely. I think it looks a lot better than a completely dark room.
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Post by david1 on Nov 2, 2021 22:12:13 GMT
I got enough problems taking photos in the daytime, taking night photos? Ill spare you the the problems!!!!
Dave
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Post by ptc on Nov 2, 2021 23:12:02 GMT
"I got enough problems taking photos in the daytime, taking night photos? Ill spare you the the problems!!!!"
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