What I keep looking for about electricity replacing hydrocarbon fuels, is the cost in money and in pollution of the generation of electricity. Water spilling through a generator at a dam seems cheap and clean, as does wind (although wind is not always available). Solar power is probably cheap (once installed) and pollution free, but limited to daylight, and to non cloudy hours. The hidden or ignored factor that is present in electricity generation from many power plants must also contribute to pollution by those run on fossil fuel. Apparently we are to believe that there is no pollution from those plants--apparently because no one mentions the fossil fuel contribution to pollution from a high fraction of the present electric power generation plants, mostly from CO2.

In other words, it seems to me, that charging lithium batteries ultimately may (must?) produce as much pollution as burning gasoline in an engine. If not as much, surely that pollution contribution is not negligible, and should be factored into the discussion.

I think you would be correct that a newer camera with a larger sensor would take better pictures than a newer 4/3 sensor, but my newer Lumix G9 4/3 mirrorless is much better than either my older Nikon D80 or D7000. It stands to reason that sensors may have improved in 4+ years. Obviously the overall quality and cost of either design (mirrorless vs DLSR) would be a factor for same-vintage cameras.

Verryl

They are on the expensive side, but I bought my Panasonic Lumix G9 specifically for the in-camera focus stacking function. I have not used it on small objects (insects), but to take wide DOF photos on the twelve 40 to 60 foot long benches, and I generally take them hand held. The 5 axis stabilization on both the camera and each lens is good enough to take the 1 sec it takes to capture the 30 or so images to be stacked in camera if I am standing comfortably and not reaching awkwardly. The color and detail (sharpness) is superior to my old D80 and D7000 Nikons. I do not use the movie functions, and there are many other handy new features. I got the Leica 12-60mm lens and the Leica 100-400 lens. I only use my Nikons to take pictures of the Lumix.

Verryl

That is a big problem in astrophotography, although lenses are not common on Refractor scopes (see
https://optcorp.com/blogs/astronomy/the-basic-telescope-types?gclid=CjwKCAiAzNj9BRBDEiwAPsL0d1NRrom9r7RZmWkEcA_m2qqNlCjFNquNrhIR8CsyGJ2K1-Yd5EZMVBoCvtUQAvD_BwE ) for scopes types. Even my 16" mirror diameter (2.5" thick glass) would fog up way Down inside the 88 inch long 21" diameter tube.

The temp equilibrium is not the prime factor; the humidity is. Eventually with enough humidity on a damp night both will fog up, but the light weight (low thermal mass) filter will go first.

We always have scopes set up and all hardware outside by dusk, but later in the evening sometimes the dew starts to get worse. At a star party with many observers/scopes it is common to hear a hair blow dryer start up and run for a few seconds to a minute. Your situation may just have been a combination of time of night (dew usually starts later as it gets cooler), and the very low thermal mass of the filter (it cools rapidly) compared to the heavy camera/scope. On some nights the hairdryers are used a lot, on other nights hardly ever.
Verryl

Yup. Wyoming on a wet year early summer about 3-4 PM just before the daily thunderstorm.

Many more pedestrians than motorcyclists. % would be reversed, probably.

The circled part suggesting flare, is a discontinuous change in the blue backdrop from curved inward at the top (near the camera) to straight up and down to allow a simple curve around to the right at the end of the bench.

I have just ordered a pair of medium sized bi-color LED panels from Amazon, Neewer 660 model. With my earlier pair of single globe LED (~4 inch diameter diffuser) lights I should have plenty of light control.

Thanks again,
Verryl

Larry,

Thanks for the insight. I do not recall anything like "Flicker rate" in the camera manual. But the more simple thing to do would be to just use LED lighting, which is more constant.

Thanks again,
Verryl

Thanks Mike.

I call it the Wyoming Division (of the Union Pacific) from Cheyenne to Ogden. So it has two major grades, Sherman Hill just west of Cheyenne and the Wasatch Mountains just east of Ogden. I model the 1957 era, so I have Challengers (~10 ea), Big Boys (5), 9000's (2), and FEF (5) plus smaller steam locos for locals and yard work; also early diesels, and all three gas electric turbines.

It is built specifically for operations, which normally (sans Covid) we have one per month plus a 3 day meet with 2 all day sessions for up to 50 operators. The monthly sessions draw up to 25 in winter, 18 or so in summers. I live in Sedona, AZ, and the layout is 17 miles away in a little horse community of Cornville, AZ.

It has double track mains each about 1006 feet long, plus a 186 foot long bidirectional Oregon Short Line to "Portland," a subsidiary staging yard of 9 tracks plus a through track to a turning loop for the City of Portland passenger train. Main staging is 12 tracks including a through track and loop for Cities of LA, SF, and St. Louis. These 4 City trains plus other local mixed trains run per a time table. Freights are up to 17 cars long plus engine, tinder, and caboose. Main staging is in 4 quarters, each section can hold a full train. There is also an adjacent 5 track stub staging we use for Omaha, Nebraska. There is also Track #3, the Harriman Cutoff, from the wye at Speer just SW of Cheyenne to Dale Junction as an alternate bidirectional route up the eastern slope of Sherman Hill. One third of #3 has an 18 foot double track section. The mains, #1 and #2, and #3 all have ABS. Operations is per Rule 251D with ABS, so the Dispatcher is a busy, but easy job. We have fixed phones, 8 on each of the two mushroom levels to the Dispatcher, and 10 FRS for DS to passenger superintendent, some YM's and other key positions so the Dispatcher can send orders to these "Temporary Tower Operators."

I have developed a unique 4-card car forwarding system (single move car cards, block cards, loco cards, and a one sheet train order) that is simple, easy to learn and follow, and more prototypical and random and flexible than repetitive 4-cycle car cards. We have through trains, some with switching, some without; switching locals; coal drags; LCL work, and 4 busy yards, 2 with a YM and Classification Foreman (Laramie and Green River); 2 refineries, 6 coal mines (3 each at Hanna and Rock Springs); a switching puzzle--13 industries at Downtown Ogden; 906 spots to be switched.

One day op sessions are from 9 to about 4:30, but the layout is big enough that only Laramie, Green River, and staging are necessary jobs; other operators can come and go as they need to. And operators can switch to more than one job in the one day and two day sessions.

See more at http://www.wyomingdivision.org/

Verryl

I am building a very large (50x75 foot) two level HO model railroad. After almost 6 years we are to the scenery stage, and we have done the easiest scenery first, the upper level that is open and easier to access. The lower level has the upper level hanging over it, and there is about 20 inches between them. The lower level is lighted with fluorescent light fixtures mounted on the underneath side of the upper level.

I took a few photos yesterday, mostly of the ABS (automatic block signals), and one was of tracks and a single signal on a mast (pole) back at the dark end of one bench. The fluorescent lights were on to light the scene. I used a Panasonic Lumix G9 mirrorless 4/3 digital camera set on auto exposure mode (iA) and set to use the G9's semiautomatic focus stacking mode, which they call "post focus." Post focus works by taking a 1 second video at about 30 frames/sec while the focus is shifted over the whole depth of field. Then as a manual step I can assemble the 30 frames into a single image using the in-focus parts of the individual frames.

I can often take such a 1 sec video hand held if I can capture the scene without body contortions, because the camera and 12-60mm Leica lens have excellent image stabilization, but for this shot I would have had to lean over the lower bench to shoot along the bench. So I set the camera on a sturdy mini-tripod pointing along the bench under the fluorescent lamps with the lone signal, the object of interest for the shot, near the center of the frame. Here is a result, one of many tries at various angles. All showed the two brown "interference bands" horizontally across each exposure. I took about 20 shots varying the distance, focal length,and angle to the length of bench. All were with the iA auto exposure setting which is required for the "post focus" video setting, an exposure burst setting. All the photos lighted by fluorescents showed the bands, both in the 1 sec originating video and the assembled JPEG. The band intensity varied in the various shots depending on angle or focal length, but could not be avoided. The second attached photo is of the over hanging fluorescent lights, and it also shows bands. The camera location for the first photo is about midway between the bench and the overhanging lights, and about under the end of the first of the 4 tubes running along the bench length. The view of the camera was from the aisle about 3 feet from the center of the bench, but the camera was pointed roughly along the lower bench.

I finally gave up lighting the scene with the bench overhead fluorescent lights, and I turned them off and lighted the scene from the side with two LED lights with diffusers over each lamp. That is the third photo, again a focus stacked one, but with no brown bands, so it seems sure that the brown bands were from the fluorescents. When I got back to my computer, I looked at previous images I had taken of scenes on the lower level. They were all taken more or less perpendicular to the lower bench, and on close inspection they showed two very faint brown bands, which were so faint that I had not noticed them before. Therefore, aligning the camera with the bench has the effect of intensifying the bands, but shooting perpendicular to a lower bench seems to always cause bands, although they are more faint. They probably are caused by the closely overhanging lights, but I am not sure. But what else could it be?

I am convinced that the brown bands are an artifact of the fluorescent lighting only 12 to 16 inches above the camera (on the tripod), so LED lighting is a cure. With this post I am just seeking an explanation of how fluorescents close to the scene cause the banding. It must be due to the close proximity of the lights to the camera and the bench, and the video frame rate is 30 frames/sec, and I imagine the natural flicker frequency of the fluorescent lights is 60 cycles/sec.

I don't get banding on the upper level, where the room lighting is fluorescent also, but those lights hang several feet over the upper level benches, and there is a lot more indirect lighting from more distant fixtures and from reflections from the room ceiling and walls. Such reflected light must be diffuse light bouncing all around the room.

Note: I have not bothered to do post processing on the banded images.

Focus stacking can be a great advantage for LARGE subjects also. I bought my Lumix G9 specifically to focus stack multiple images to get a single sharply focused image over a range of as much as 60 feet on my very large Wyoming Division HO model railroad. The layout fills a 50 x 75 foot building and the benches range from 36 feet long to over 60 feet. Depth of field limits sharp focus over just a very few feet of such a distance, especially since the photographer is constrained to shooting within the building near the benches. So focus stacking is not limited to photographing bugs or flowers!

The G9 "Post Focus" setting takes a 1 second video at about 30 frames/sec, then with 3 back screen "clicks" of a finger assembles the stack of video images into a single sharp JPG in about 60 seconds. With 5 axis image stabilization I can easily hold the camera steady enough for a good shot, so I do not require a tripod or electronic shutter release, unless I have to lean over or bend into a contorted position to frame a certain scene. And it is a mirrorless camera, so there is no mirror flop.

Note that I previously used Helicon, but it requires tedious multiple exposures with hard to make tiny and delicate adjustments to the focus ring. Now I use the Lumix G9 "Post Focus" for nearly all layout photos, even of close and compact scenes. Eight or so separate exposures took me 10 minutes plus to setup and take.

Just a few days ago the free web magazine "Model Railroad Hobbyist" published an article I wrote about both my Helicon procedure and the Lumix G9 simple "one shot" method. It is in th MRH Sept 2020 issue of its supplement "Running Extra," The supplement costs $2.99, but my original version, which is more thorough, is on my free website at http://wyomingdivision.org/articles.htm

By the way, both versions of the article also cover how to use Luminar 4's Sky Replacement AI tool when the sky does not extend all the way to the top of the image--as so often happens with model railroad layout painted backdrops that is only so high inside a building. Sky Replacement AI will not work unless "sky" is at the very top of an exposure--probably the artificial part of the intelligence.

Next time it happens, immediately shoot the same shot from the same place, with a different lens set to as close to the same settings as possible, f/, F, shutter speed, ISO, temp, etc. If it shows up on both images, it is not the lens, leaving the sun angle, dirty sensor and other things in common.

Verryl Fosnight

General reply, and a simple (simplistic?) question. I have asked this question before and got no answer.

I shoot images of my very large model railroad that has benches as long as 65 feet. The benches are inside a 50 x 75 foot building, so the camera must be near the closer end of the bench; the whole bench is desired to be in the field of view, as in the attachment.

Each photo in the stack is manually focused on the round door pulls which are mounted 2 to an 8 foot long door (below the grey painted fascia bounding the scenery). I used manual back focusing at 2x or more magnification on my Nikon D7000 screen and a 18-55mm kit lens, a tripod, and a remote trigger with a pause of 2-3 seconds after the lens-up trigger to allow mirror flop vibrations to damp out.

For any camera: do macro lens have a finer thread or adjustment than normal lens? That is, the above normal lens when focused manually as above for a macro photo to obtain sharp focus on each handle over the depth of 60 feet from just a few feet from the camera to that distance requires a tiny partial turn (~1/8" measured on the lens focus ring circumference). That is difficult to maintain uniformity over the long field, to move the focus plane about 5-6 feet. To adjust to increments less that 5 feet is impractical. The total adjustment for this photo is perhaps 1/8 of a turn.

Would a macro lens allow finer adjustment, that is more than 8 or so captures?

I gave a lengthy presentation (> 1hr) on Zoom, and it worked fine for my new i7 Win 10 desktop, which has no built in camera or mic. My voice was broadcast through my $60 camera/mic. Maybe the explanation of why it works for some Win 10 machines and not for others (that is, Cortina problem), is desktop vs. laptop with built in camera/mic.

Verryl