Snow Business

[mymodeltrain]

Rik, may you share some experience for taking movies? I usually have a small Nikon mounted on a tiny tripod, it is perfect but I have to make multiple movies for each scenes. And I have to link them into one piece later on. While another simpler approach is to use a cell phone camera, I can pause after changing the scenes, at the end I have a whole movie ready for view, albeit the disadvantage of cell phone camera is that we can't mount on a tripod and thus some sort of vibration is apparent from the movies.

[ge_rik]

Rik, may you share some experience for taking movies?

Hi
I usually use my Panasonic HD video camera. I sometimes use my Canon digital stills camera but that outputs .mov files which aren't as easy to edit as the files from the camera. I have a gorilla pod which I generally use for taking lineside shots but didn't bother with it this time - instead, I just rested the camera on a block of wood as it could be rested on top of various snow drifts which I carved out to make a camera mount.

I acclimatised the camera by putting it in the unheated conservatory for about half an hour before taking it outside, in case condensation formed in the camera. Similarly I re-acclimatised it when bringing it (and the locos) back indoors.

I then stitch everything together in an editing package (Corel VideStudio). I generally shoot twice as much footage as I actually use. Sometimes I have to retake a shot because the camera gets hit by rolling stock or the framing is wrong. At other times I completely reject a scene because it doesn't look very good or doesn't fit into the narrative. On the snow film, I only rejected two shots; one because it looked so similar to the others I felt they didn't add anything and the other because there was too much of the house in the background. I would have taken more footage but it was beginning to get dark and the temperature was dropping an ice was forming on the rail-tops.

Rik

[FWLR]

That was a brilliant explanation Rik for taking videos thank you.

Also the rail clearing is simple thanks, but what about the points, did you just run your trains has is, or did you free them up. I found my points wouldn’t move at all.

[ge_rik]

...... what about the points, did you just run your trains as is, or did you free them up. I found my points wouldn’t move at all.

Hi Rod
Fortunately most of my points were already switched to the right direction. A couple needed to be cleared of loose snow to ensure the blades properly bedded against the stock rails. However, the point which was on the raised section was completely iced up (and frozen in the wrong direction - Sod's Law). That took a fair bit of fettling and persuasion to free it up.

Rik

[mymodeltrain]

Rik, may you share some experience for taking movies?

Hi
I usually use my Panasonic HD video camera. I sometimes use my Canon digital stills camera but that outputs .mov files which aren't as easy to edit as the files from the camera. I have a gorilla pod which I generally use for taking lineside shots but didn't bother with it this time - instead, I just rested the camera on a block of wood as it could be rested on top of various snow drifts which I carved out to make a camera mount.

I acclimatised the camera by putting it in the unheated conservatory for about half an hour before taking it outside, in case condensation formed in the camera. Similarly I re-acclimatised it when bringing it (and the locos) back indoors.

I then stitch everything together in an editing package (Corel VideStudio). I generally shoot twice as much footage as I actually use. Sometimes I have to retake a shot because the camera gets hit by rolling stock or the framing is wrong. At other times I completely reject a scene because it doesn't look very good or doesn't fit into the narrative. On the snow film, I only rejected two shots; one because it looked so similar to the others I felt they didn't add anything and the other because there was too much of the house in the background. I would have taken more footage but it was beginning to get dark and the temperature was dropping an ice was forming on the rail-tops.

Rik

Thanks for the experience; really "no pain no gain"; that also explains why your movies are always good.

[FWLR]

...... what about the points, did you just run your trains as is, or did you free them up. I found my points wouldn’t move at all.

Hi Rod
Fortunately most of my points were already switched to the right direction. A couple needed to be cleared of loose snow to ensure the blades properly bedded against the stock rails. However, the point which was on the raised section was completely iced up (and frozen in the wrong direction - Sod's Law). That took a fair bit of fettling and persuasion to free it up.

Rik

I did get mine free eventually, with a very small amount of de-icer rubbed on with a cloth over the rails and the lever point, didn’t want to put to much on just in case, you never know with that stuff...

[Bernie]

Hi Rik with me being new I'm catching up on different topics and think your video of the loco running in the snow is splendid looks and sounds great.