First of all, the hull is pretty much fully sanded and ready for paint! I’ve not photographed it again because it still looks exactly like it did before. Before I paint the hull, though, I plan on drilling out the portholes with a 0.6mm, 0.7mm or 0.8mm drill bit. This step will take some time, but I think it’ll be worth it!

I’ve also begun cleaning up and glueing some of the other bits.

Above you can see one of the almost-finished gun turrets. Obviously the gun barrels aren’t in there yet and they’re not painted, but most of the preparation is done.

Below is one of the far from finished machine guns from the side of the ship. They still need a lot of cleaning up and glueing, and then painting, of course.

Now on to the photoetch kit.

I decided to attempt my first assembly of one of the photoetch parts this evening, and I think i’ve made a bit of a mess of it.

In the image below you can see the grey plastic crane arm which came with the original kit and the photoetch equivalent folded and glued by myself.

As you can see from the image below, I’ve made quite a mess of it! First of all, it’s bent at one end because I accidentally crushed part of it (very easily done with metal this thin and flimsy), it’s warped and bent all the way along it because I kept glueing my fingers and the tweezers to it and having to forcefully remove them, and for two reasons, which I’ll come to in a second, a lot of the gaps in the structure are filled in with glue!

So, there are two reasons the gaps are filled with glue… first of all, picking up tiny blobs of superglue on the end of a toothpick and then getting rid of most of it before applying it to the model is actually very difficult. You always get too much glue and if you try to wipe it off, you lose too much of it. Secondly, applying glue to only the edges of the metal and hoping they will stick is pointless – glueing such a small surface area simply doesnt work. You need a small bead of glue running along the inside edge of the structure, but given that this entire structure is only about 4mm wide and 30mm long, that’s almost impossible to achieve!

The only other thing is that part of me things the photoetch actually looks slightly out of place… the crane “body” is that grey plastic triangular part with the “stick” sticking out of it, which can be seen in the first photo of the crane arm above. If you remove the plastic crane arm from it and attach the photoetch crane arm instead, I think it might actually look so fragile compared to the thick, sturdy plastic crane body that i’d be better off with the plastic crane arm!

I’m still undecided on that though… maybe with more photoetch parts they’ll start to fit in more… who knows!

Related posts:

1. A New Project – HMS Warspite!
2. Warspite photo etch has arrived, workspace has been improved
3. The Warspite model has arrived, but a few bits are missing…

In summary, Sarah and I have been to several more steam rallies, I have been to a bike show, I queued up at 5:30am for an iPhone 4 on launch day, I was official photographer at a wedding(!), I’ve spent 2 nights sleeping on a punctured air bed, we’ve bought a caravan and “done it up” and I’m now involved with “Ada”!

First of all, Meldreth Manor Bike Show

Held at Meldreth Manor School, this is a charity event organised by the Royston and District Motorcycle Club. It’s actually the “Royston and District Motorcycle Club Annual Show”, but is known as the “Meldreth Manor Bike Show” to most people.

I wasn’t planning on going to this, mainly because it’s held on a Wednesday evening, but decided to at the last minute. I have to say, I’m very glad I did! Over 3,200 bikes turned up for those 4 hours and it was spectacular!

Photos of Meldreth Manor Bike Show 2010

Video of Meldreth Manor Bike Show 2010

Somersham Carnival

Sarah and I travelled to Somersham Carnival again this year on the back of the Matchless. The carnival was as enjoyable as ever, with a Mardi Gras theme, and guess what? I won “Best Motorcycle” again!

Photos of Somersham Carnival

iPhone 4

Some of you are going to think I’m crazy, some of you may not, but I queued up outside Lion Yard Shopping Centre (now called the Grand Arcade, I believe!) in Cambridge at 5:30am on iPhone 4 Launch Day to attempt to swap my perfectly good 32GB iPhone 3GS for a brand new 32GB iPhone 4! I was 8th in line.

Did I get my iPhone 4? Yes!

Was it worth paying out my contract with 1 year remaining? Was it worth getting up at 4:30am? Was it worth spending that day with no mobile phone because I had to activate the new one in iTunes before I could use it?

Yes! Well, I think so anyway.

Many people have spoken of reception issues, dropped calls etc… but although I can successfully make the reception indicator bars drop off by holding the phone in the wrong place, I have never suffered a single reception-based issue with the iPhone 4 whatsoever. I do have a case now because I keep dropping it, but I never had an issue for the 2 months before I got the case!

The “Retina” display is amazing, the LED camera flash is excellent as a torch, the speed increase is gratefully received, the camera is of much better quality and the 720p video recording is very good indeed! In summary, I can definitely recommend the iPhone 4 above all other iPhones! There is *no* reason not to upgrade in my opinion!

Classic & Vintage Bike Day, Cambridge Museum of Technology

Once again, at the Cambridge Museum of Technology, there was a classic and vintage bike day. It unfortunately clashed with the “World Cup” (something to do with a game called “football” apparently), but there was a very good turnout considering!

There were a few people out the back working on the main steam engine too (unrelated to the bike show, of course), trying to find which one of the boiler tubes was leaking. I must admit, I spent most of my time with the steam engine people discussing the best way to find the leaky tube! Every idea I came up with, though, had either already been attempted or was actually useless! I guess we live and learn!

Photos of Classic & Vintage Bike Day, Cambridge Museum of Technology

Video of Classic & Vintage Bike Day, Cambridge Museum of Technology

Hollowell Steam Rally & Heavy Horse Show

The Hollowell rally is always one of the best rallies of the year in my opinion, with a great variety of exhibits, ranging from giant insects, through Titan the Robot, to the “Dancing Digger” (a JCB with a very skilled driver!). Needless to say, we took the motorbike again and had a thoroughly great time for the entire 3 days! If I remember correctly, the temperature outside was very warm indeed (high 20s, anyway) and helped make the weekend great!

Photos of Hollowell Steam Rall & Heavy Horse Show

Video of Hollowell Steam Rally & Heavy Horse Show 2010

Photographing a wedding!

Another thing I’ve done since the last blog post is be official photographer at some good friends’ wedding! Now, there’s a rather large learning curve to go from photographing stationary steam engines to photographing a wedding, but now that I’ve edited all 1,840 or so photos down to the final set (after a number of weeks!) I think I pulled it off! The photos are far from “professional”, but I’ve learned a lot from the experience and, of course, thoroughly enjoyed the day, as did everyone!

And the main thing? The bride and groom like the photos, so in a way, nothing else matters! The lack of professionalism, the overexposed whites, the underexposed blacks and the bad composition mean nothing now because the people that matter like the photos!

Cambridgeshire Steam Rally

A week or two after Hollowell, the Cambridgeshire Steam Rally at Swavesey happened. This was only the second year for this rally, but with double the number of exhibits from the first year, the event was the best yet! The weather was roasting hot too, which helped bring the crowds in.

Photos of Cambridgeshire Steam Rally, Swavesey

Videos of Cambridgeshire Steam Rally, Swavesey (this year’s video not yet edited, but watch this space!)

Thurlow Steam Rally

The latest rally was the Thurlow rally. This year it clashed with the AJS & Matchless Owners Club Jampot Rally (due to the Jampot rally having been moved forward a few weeks) and although the decision of which one to attend was a difficult one, I’m very glad we decided to go to Thurlow this year! More on that later.

One thing I’d like to say about the Thurlow rally is about the atmosphere. This rally is one of the most relaxing rallies of the entire year and for that reason it is one of my favourites. The larger rallies have to be very organised, with scouts running the car park, army cadets acting as wardens to ensure safe passage of vehicles in and out of the arena, people in yellow jackets everywhere keeping the rally running smoothly, etc… but somehow Thurlow manages to operate pretty much on time, perfectly safely and everything just happens on-site with seemingly no stress whatsoever!

Don’t get me wrong though – i’m sure lots of stress goes into the organisation of the rally each year, but the impression of a lack of stress and panic during the weekend certainly makes for one of my favourite rallies of the year, so thank you for a great rally again Michael!

Photos of Thurlow Steam Rally

Videos of Thurlow Steam Rally (this year’s video not yet edited, but watch this space!)

Caravan

While at the Cambridgeshire Steam Rally, there was a problem. Our air bed developed a slow puncture. On my side. During the first night. On a very rough field.

This wasn’t the end of the world, as I can somehow survive on very little sleep if I have to(!), but I could not find the puncture anywhere! If I pumped up the mattress in the morning, by 10pm it would still be up, but 3 hours after I started laying on it, it’d be out of air completely.

At this same rally we were informed by a couple of fellow rally-goers who we know quite well now, that there was a caravan for sale near them for £200. So, the day after we got back from the rally, we headed up there to pop in for a cup of tea and to take a look at the caravan down the road. Needless to say, we drove home with the caravan in tow!

Since we bought it, we’ve actually spent more money on it than it’s worth, but in doing so we’ve made it our own, and in the 1.5 weeks that followed the initial purchase we have completely re-foamed and re-covered the seats, washed the curtains, cleaned and sterilised the inside, washed the outside, re-carpeted it and put all the hinges and door-stops on that weren’t quite screwed in properly! Our aim was to have it read for the Thurlow rally, and that we did!

I have to say, having spent a year going to rallies in a tent, upgrading to a caravan is an infinitely large step up (not literally). For a start, there’s no risk the air bed will go down leaving you sleeping on the grass! When it’s raining, you can still have a cup of tea. You don’t have to sit on a chair leaning forward cooking or boiling the kettle on a stove on the grass. You don’t have to sit in awkward folding camping chairs. The list goes on and on! In summary, upgrading to a caravan was one of the most sensible things we’ve done in relation to rallies and other multi-day events! The only disadvantage is having to do one trip to take the caravan and another to take the motorbike, but I’ll buy a van one day to solve that problem!

Finally, I’ll mention “Ada” (seen below).

As far as I know (at this early stage) Ada is a 105 year old (built in 1905) 10-ton 7 nominal horse power Fowler general purpose steam traction engine. It is owned by David and family, who were after some help with the engine. David currently looks after the maintenance and running of the engine mostly on his own and while I know very little about the mechanical side of steam engines at this stage, I’ve been wanting to get involved with a full-size steam engine for many, many years. This year, at the Thurlow rally, that opportunity came up and I took it!

My involvement with the engine will begin this winter when I’ll start meeting David at the workshop to begin the winter maintenance cycle and will then hopefully continue on through next year’s rally season and beyond! To be honest, it’s a bit of a dream come true, so thank you David for the opportunity and thank you Hugh for introducing me to David and finding me the opportunity!

Photos of “Ada” on Steam Scenes

Related posts:

1. Cambridgeshire Steam Rally, Thurlow Steam Rally, "Gigantic" and my new phone!
2. The Events of 2010!
3. Steam Rallies and the Rest of Summer

Before I get on to our latest steam rally, I’ll briefly mention the modelling I’ve been doing…

I have been learning various techniques for use on the Warspite model and mainly practising my airbrushing technique. Airbrushing in itself isn’t too difficult, but finding the correct paint/thinner mix is the tricky part; get that right and the rest just happens!

Above you can see the tail end of a 1:72 scale Lockheed Martin F 16C Fighting Falcon by PM Models. This model was kindly donated to me by a work colleague for practising on. The paint finish isn’t perfect, but it’s significantly better than it would be with a brush, and once it’s had a coat of clear varnish, I’m sure it’ll look good enough for me!

The other thing I’ve started is sanding the base of the hull! A while ago I glued the two halves of the hull together and now I’m sanding them down with 1500 and 2000 grit wet-and-dry paper ready for their first coat of primer.

Above you can see the nearly finished bow and below you can see the not-yet-started stern.

The next thing to do is to fill the gap down the middle to make it perfectly smooth. I’ll do this just before the primer goes on, and hopefully it’ll then be ready for it’s first coat of paint!

The other thing that’s happened since the last blog post is Strumpshaw Steam Rally!

We didn’t take the Matchless to Strumpshaw because we were a bit late booking in, so Sarah and I paid our entry fee and stayed from Friday evening until Monday evening without the bike. We had a great time too; the weather was great and there was lots going on!

While I think of it, something I don’t think I’ve done before is explain that a Steam Rally isn’t actually just about steam engines. Above you can see some of the many Land Rovers that were on display amongst the military vehicles.

There were also tractors…

Motorcycles…

Goats…

Ostriches…

Scratch-built model boats…

An entire steam museum…

Cars…

A beer tent…

Live music…

An entire fairground…

Powered by Showman’s engines…

Wood sawing…

Train rides…

And a sheep dog demonstration!

The other thing that happened at Strumpshaw was a road run on Saturday and Sunday evening to a local pub. Sarah and I went along on Sunday having hitched a lift from a very generous Mr. Garrod in the back of his Foden steam wagon.

Above is S. Garrod’s steam wagon and below is the view over the roof as we were travelling down the road!

You can see our trip to the pub, plus almost every other aspect of the rally in the high quality 720p HD video below…

If the video above doesn’t work, you can also watch it in slightly lower quality here.

Photos of Strumpshaw Steam Rally 2010

Video of Strumpshaw Steam Rally 2010 (Also available on Youtube in HD!)

Related posts:

1. The motorcycle and steam rally season has begun!
2. A busy weekend woodworking!
3. Cambridgeshire Steam Rally, Thurlow Steam Rally, "Gigantic" and my new phone!

First of all, Airfix are kindly going to send me replacement parts for the broken part and missing part from the Warspite model free-of-charge. These parts will arrive within 2 weeks apparently which seems quite slow, but I don’t actually need these parts for a few weeks so it’s not a problem.

As you can see above, the photo etch has also arrived! It got slightly damaged in transit unfortunately, but White Ensign Models are kindly going to send me a new one free-of-charge! I would like to say, however, that the damage was not done as a result of the packaging or any bad handling done by WEM. The item was packaged superbly, and I believe the damage was just the result of bad luck.

For those of you unfamiliar with these photo etch kits, the one above is A5 size (210x148mm / 8.2″x5.8″). The individual parts are therefore tiny!

Anyway, the damage can be seen below…

Aerial (maybe?) bent

Entire photo etch kit slightly creased

On a separate note, some of the paint has also arrived as well as colour map showing the 1942 camouflage and all other painted areas.

I have also paid Screwfix another visit and purchased a kitchen extraction fan to replace the underpowered fan I had already installed into the modelling workspace/box and a light, also to be installed into the box. Both of these modifications are now complete!

I’m planning trip soon to the craft store to buy knife, cutting mat and other stuff too, because at this stage, despite all this preparation, I still have no way of removing the plastic parts from their casting “spruce”!

The other thing I need to do is to look into active carbon filters vs. extracting directly to outside world. My original intention with the extraction fan is that I will attach a tube to it and poke the tube out of a door or window. Given that this fan shifts 230 cubic meters per hour, however, during winter it has the potential to empty my house of warm air very quickly! A work colleague has therefore suggested potential use of active carbon filters. So far I know nothing about these, but my investigation has begun!

Related posts:

1. The Warspite model has arrived, but a few bits are missing…
2. Progress on the Warspite and the difficulties of photoetch!
3. A busy weekend woodworking!

AMOC Intersection Meet

The first event was the AJS & Matchless Owners Club East Anglian Intersection Meet on 18 April at the White Horse, Sible Hedingham. The weather was wondeful if I remember correctly, and I rode a total of 113 miles including getting to and from the start and end points.

There was a great turnout of perhaps 60-70 bikes, and it was great to meet so many fellow AJS & Matchless riders all in the same place!

Photos of Intersection Meet at White Horse, Sible Hedingham

Cottenham Yesteryear Road Run

The following weekend was the Cottenham Yesteryear Road Run on 25 April. The day started out wet, but had completely dried out by lunchtime and ended up being quite a nice day! This event is a procession of 400 or so classic and vintage vehicles that travel from Cottenham to various neighbouring villages one-by-one before ending up back at Cottenham in order to raise money for MAGPAS.

Photos of Cottenham Yesteryear Road Run 2010

Video of Cottenham Yesteryear Road Run 2010

Rushden Cavalcade

This was our first steam rally of the year, and being from 1-3 May, it wasn’t particularly warm! There had been some warm days by this point in the year, but none of them chose to show up at Rushden! We mostly had rain, wind and rather cold temperatures for most of the weekend, and even though the rally is for 3 days, Sarah and I got there 2 days early, so suffered the weather for 5 whole days!

Having said that though, it was still a very enjoyable rally overall. Sarah, unfortunately, had a dreadful cold and sore throat for most of it, but still enjoyed the weekend. On two of the three rally days, it was so cold that while I was in the middle of the arena with the other motorcyclists waiting to chat with the commentator/announcer I had to warm my hands up by holding the engine!

Anyway, weather aside, it was a great rally and even if you don’t like motorcycles or steam engines, I strongly suggest you have a look through the photos and watch the video because, like a lot of other rallies, they also had cars, military vehicles, trucks, a beer tent, live bands, model boats, model military scenes, model circuses, tractors, and lots more!

Photos of Rushden Cavalcade 2010

Video of Rushden Cavalcade 2010

AMOC Bike Run to The Chequers Inn, Wrestlingworth

The most recent event was another AJS & Matchless Owners Club bike run, this time to The Chequers Inn at Wrestlingworth. We were going to meet at the pub at 10:30 and along with many other motorcyclists on all sorts of bikes, have a ride around the countryside for an hour or so before ending up back at the pub for a barbeque. The weather was wonderful and the bike ride was enjoyable! The barbeque was also fantastic, so overall another enjoyable day!

Related posts:

1. Another steam rally & a bit of modelling!
2. The Events of 2010!
3. Steam Rallies and the Rest of Summer

Because I’m already relatively short of time day by day I needed a permanent workspace for the Warspite project (and possibly other model building projects in future!) to save having to spend 20 minutes each time getting everything set up and putting everything away again afterwards. This workspace was going to be the kitchen counter. However, I didn’t want to be cutting into the kitchen work surface or airbrushing the kitchen wall. I also didn’t want to be inhaling enamel paint fumes and I didn’t want our dinner trays, recyclable items or anything else falling on the half-built model and damaging it. I also didn’t want it all getting dusty!

So, this weekend, I’ve built this:

This started life as a 4ft x 4ft x 7ft wooden crate designed for transporting very heavy items safely across the world. This weekend I have dismantled it, sawn it into pieces, attached the pieces together in various ways and put a coat of paint or two on it in order to turn it into what you see above – a 2.5ft x 2.5ft x 3.5ft modelling workspace. These photos show it after its first coat of paint. Coat 2 is drying as I write this post.

I still need to put a handle or two on the front lower edge, but other than that, it’s pretty much finished. The front and top are hinged and lift up to reveal what is inside.

There are a couple of shelves on the left hand side and a 230V extraction fan on the right. The idea is that the fan will have a tumble drier hose attached to it which will be shoved out the door or window to keep the paint fumes away. When the painting is finished, I can then close the lid on the box (which is far from airtight) and let the extraction fan keep sucking the fumes out of the box and drying the paint at the same time!

Depending on how the lighting proves to be in my kitchen, I might put some lights in the box too. I haven’t decided about that yet.

Anyway, that’s it for now. Now I just need the missing Airfix parts, the photo etch kit, the paint, an airbrush and compressor, a cutting mat, a knife, some paint brushes, some sandpaper, some filler and some glue! Maybe a few other bits too. Who knows!

UPDATE (evening of 16 May 2010): The box now has its second coat of paint and is installed onto the kitchen counter!

…and now with the door/cover open!

Related posts:

1. Warspite photo etch has arrived, workspace has been improved
2. Another steam rally & a bit of modelling!
3. The Warspite model has arrived, but a few bits are missing…

As you can see below, it is made of quite a few bits, but having looked through the instructions, this model isn’t diffcult to assemble. It will be time consuming because I want it to look immaculate, but I would compare it to the Lego truck with grabber arm I built when I was much younger than I am today! That truck has working pneumatics and a mechanically sound V8 engine!

However, as you can see below, part number 74 is slightly damaged. Depending on what the photo etch kit that I have ordered contains, this may not be an issue, but I won’t know until the PE kit actually arrives.

Also, as you can see below, part number 38 is completely missing!

This is going to be more of an issue, but I believe Airfix will send out missing parts if you ask for them. They may charge for that service, but on the basis that I have bought an item which has been sent incomplete, I’m hoping I can get the missing part and the damaged part replaced for free!

Anyway, that’s all for now. I’ll report more when more actually happens!

Related posts:

1. Warspite photo etch has arrived, workspace has been improved
2. A New Project – HMS Warspite!
3. Progress on the Warspite and the difficulties of photoetch!

HMS Warspite (Courtesy of MaritimeQuest)

Needless to say, the picture above is not a model. It’s HMS Warspite off Normandy, France in June 1944. This image, many other images and lots of other information, by the way, can be found at MaritimeQuest.

Anyway, this all started when Sarah and I were in Hobbycraft. Sarah was searching for supplies and I was bored. I therefore ventured to the back isle in the store where I found model cars, Lego, Hornby trains, model planes, all sorts of Airfix models and various other things of vague interest to me.

It was there I spotted an Airfix model of HMS Hood. I thought the Hood looked a lot like the Warspite, the ship my Grandad served on during World War II, and pondered building a model of the Warspite if I could find one. If I was to undertake such a challenge, however, I would want it done properly, with lots of detail, nothing missing, painted to perfection and placed inside a custom case to keep the dust off, and perhaps displayed somewhere within the house, but would I have the discipline and skills to pull it off given that I have never attempted anyhing like this before? I retreated to think some more and eventually we left Hobbycraft (they didn’t have a model of the Warspite anyway) and I have spent the last week researching it on the Internet.

HMS Warspite (Courtesy of MaritimeQuest)

This week I have learned that the Warspite was a Queen Elizabeth class battleship and the Hood was an Admiral class battlecruiser. Therefore, although they look similar at first glance, a model of the Hood would not do. I needed the Warspite specifically. This seems to restrict me to either a 1:600 Airfix plastic model or a 1:700 resin model and as I’ve never dealt with resin in any form before and 700 to 1 feels a bit small, I have decided to go for the 1:600 Airfix HMS Warspite model!

HMS Warspite (Courtesy of MaritimeQuest)

Having also read about Dr. George Pek’s Warspite model building attempt between 2000 and 2003, I have decided to pick up the “PE 614″ Warspite Photo-etch kit from White Ensign Models.

So far, I have not purchased anything – I have no model, no photo-etch kit, no glue, no paint and no brushes. I intend on buying the model and the rest of the kit some time in the next couple of weeks though (time permitting) and getting to work ASAP! I also have the advantage of knowing someone who builds lots of models, has lots of equipment (airbrushes, compressors, paints) and lots of knowledge on this topic, so given enough time (and that might be a year or two) I hope to produce a fairly accurate version of the ship my Grandad served on during WWII!

If you are interested in keeping up with my progress, feel free to either subscribe to my blog’s RSS Feed or keep checking my HMS Warspite page!

Related posts:

1. The Warspite model has arrived, but a few bits are missing…
2. Warspite photo etch has arrived, workspace has been improved
3. A busy weekend woodworking!

A work colleague of mine makes a lot of models, and we though it would be interesting to try and make them to make then look life-sized or larger. I also stumbled across a photograph on the Nikon D300s Sample Images page by Ami Vitale of what looks like a scale model of Cairo. However, I believe it’s a life size image either with some blurring applied in post-processing or taken with a tilt-shift lens.

So, above, you can see a photo of a model diesel locomotive.

Actually, it’s not a model. It’s life-sized and was originally taken as part of the Nene Valley Railway Spring Diesel Gala photo gallery.

If you were not fooled by the above image, that’s probably because it’s my very first attempt at making something life-sized look miniature. It took me 1.5 hours to go from the original image (below) to the image you see above! 50% of that time, however was spent waiting for my laptop to access it’s swap file as I don’t have enough RAM to make continual edits like this!

The general technique for achieving the above is to reduce the depth of field drastically. I also increased the saturation to make it look a bit more like a painted model on a model railway.

The reason this technique is so difficult (in case you wondered!) is because you cannot get a depth of field shallow enough when you are so far away from the subject.

You can reduce the depth of field by either widening the aperture of your lens or by getting closer to the subject. When photographing scale models, for example, you are typically so close that the depth of field can be measured in low numbers of centimeters. When photographing a life-sized locomotive, though, you might be stood 5 to 10 metres away and as a result, the depth of field might now measured in tens of metres. Therefore, much more is in focus and the subject no longer looks miniature. You also cannot increase the aperture any further because even on lenses that go up to f1.8, that is still not large enough to reduce the depth of field enough to make the subject look miniature.

You can achieve a very similar effect by using a tilt-shift lens, but I believe they are quite expensive, don’t quite give the same end result, and I don’t have one anyway!

To counteract this, blurring must be applied in post-processing, but this is not as easy as you might think because the further away from the lens an item is, the more it must be blurred. Because photographs are 2-dimensional instead of 3-dimensional, the photo editing software has no way of knowing what is far away from the camera and what is very close – it just sees a rectangular bunch of colored pixels called a photograph. The blurring must therefore be applied in stages, manually.

I believe the Adobe Photoshop CS4 has a “Lens Blur” feature, but as I have not paid over over £600 for my photo editing software I must use Paint Shop Photo Pro X3‘s “Depth of Field” feature. I’ve no idea how these two features compare, but I suspect they are fairly similar in that they apply a gradient blur from inside to outside starting at the edges of the chosen area.

Anyway, my first attempt, as I mentioned, is above. Hopefully it fooled you enough!

Now onto the opposite – making miniature things look large!

Above is my first attempt at this technique. The main idea with this technique is to increase the depth of field until the subject looks life-sized. As the opposite of what I mentioned above, there are two ways to increase the depth of field. One method is to get further away from the subject and the other is to decrease the aperture size.

Obviously, getting further away from the subject is easy, but the problem then becomes the amount of zoom available. If the subject is really small and you are really far away, you need a lot of zoom to make it fill the frame again! Making the aperture small is also easy – my 300mm zoom lens goes down to f45, but even that is not small enough to keep everything in the shot in focus. Therefore, you must either bring everything in the shot within the still-small depth of field, or substitute the out-of-focus elements with in-focus elements manually in post-processing.

In the above example, I was easily able to get Tiny Clanger and the bonsai tree with its mud into focus, but the background was always out of focus. I therefore grabbed a photograph of a landscape in a glass picture frame and put it about 3 inches behind the subject. This kept everything in almost in focus, but also had the reflections on the glass picture frame visible along the top half of the trees.

In summary, it was a failure, but I don’t think it was bad for a first attempt.

Next, I wanted to try the technique on my work colleague’s models. The result can be seen below.

This model aircraft has a real-life wingspan of about 2 inches. The model was originally on a stand and was shot against the sky. I edited out the stand by cloning parts of the sky over the top of it, but found that the sky was still out of focus, even when using an f45 aperture size. I therefore took another photo of the sky separately, making sure it was in focus, and then substituted the out of focus sky for the in focus sky!

I think this technique works well!

The last thing to perfect is making models look life-sized when they are not shot against something as easily replaceable as the sky. I tried shooting some ground-based models on various surfaces, but none of them worked. The concrete looked like I had zoomed in, the blades of grass looked huge and the gravel also looked strange. All of these issues gave away the fact that the subject was actually miniature and I had zoomed in in order to take the photo. This is something I still need to sort out.

Anyway – I hope this helps someone out there attempting to learn this technique, and if anyone who has already perfected it has any tips, suggestions or other comments, please let me know! Feel free to leave a comment even if you know nothing about it at all as well, of course!

Related posts:

1. A Present to Myself – a Nikon D5000 DSLR camera!
2. A New Project – HMS Warspite!

April

Easter Opening, Cambridge Museum of Technology (Sun 4 & Mon 5 April 2010)
Click here for photos of last year’s event.
Click here for videos of Cambridge Museum of Technology.

Cottenham Yesteryear Road Run (Sun 25 April 2010)
Click here for photos of last year’s event.
Click here for videos of last year’s event.
Click here for blog post of last year’s event.

May

Rushden Cavalcade of Transport & Country Show (Sat 1 – Mon 3 May 2010)

Jampot Spares Limited (JSL) Open Day (Sat 29 May 2010)
Click here for photos of last year’s event.
Click here for videos of last year’s event.
Click here for blog post of last year’s event.

Classic Bike Club Show, Stanford Hall (Sun 30 May 2010)
Click here for photos of last year’s event.
Click here for blog post of last year’s event.

May Steaming, Cambridge Museum of Technology (Sun 30 & Mon 31 May 2010)
Click here for videos of Cambridge Museum of Technology.

June

Classic Bike Show, Knebworth (Sun 6 June 2010)

Meldreth Manor Bike Show (Wed 16 June 2010)

VMCC Banbury Run (Sun 20 June 2010)

Classic & Vintage Motorbikes Day, Cambridge Museum of Technology (27 June 2010)
Click here for photos of last year’s event.
Click here for videos of Cambridge Museum of Technology.
Click here for blog post of last year’s event.

July

Hollowell Steam & Heavy Horse Show (Sat 3 – Sun 4 July 2010)
Click here for photos of last year’s event.
Click here for videos of last year’s event.
Click here for blog post of last year’s event.

AJS Anniversary Run, Wolverhampton to Woolwich (Sat 3 July 2010)

Founders Day, Stanford Hall (Sun 18 July 2010)

Cambridgeshire Steam Rally, Swavesey (Sat 24 – Sun 25 July 2010)
Click here for photos of last year’s event.
Click here for videos of last year’s event.
Click here for blog post of last year’s event.

August

Thurlow and Haverhill Steam and Country Show (Sat 7 – Sun 8 August 2010)
Click here for photos of last year’s event.
Click here for videos of last year’s event.
Click here for blog post of last year’s event.

AJS & Matchless Owners Club Jampot Rally (Fri 6 – Sun 8 August 2010)
Click here for photos of last year’s event.
Click here for videos of last year’s event.
Click here for blog post of last year’s event.

August Bank Holiday Steaming, Cambridge Museum of Technology (Sun 29 & Mon 30 August 2010)
Click here for videos of Cambridge Museum of Technology.
Click here for blog post of last year’s event.

Little Gransden Air & Classic Vehicle Show (Sun 29 August 2010)

Wimbotsham Classic Bike Show (Mon 30 August 2010)

September

Haddenham Steam Rally (Sat 11 – Sun 12 September 2010)
Click here for photos of last year’s event.
Click here for videos of last year’s event.
Click here for blog post of last year’s event.

Bedfordshire Steam and Country Show (Sat 18 – Sun 19 September 2010)
Click here for photos of last year’s event.
Click here for videos of last year’s event.
Click here for blog post of last year’s event.

Kettering Vintage Rally and Steam Fair (Sat 25 – Sun 26 September 2010)
Click here for photos of last year’s event.
Click here for videos of last year’s event.
Click here for blog post of last year’s event.

October

Great Chesterford Steam-Up (Sat 2 October 2010)
Click here for photos of last year’s event.
Click here for videos of last year’s event.
Click here for blog post of last year’s event.

Copdock Bike Show, Suffolk (Sun 3 October 2010)

October Steaming, Cambridge Museum of Technology (Sat 30 & Sun 31 October 2010)
Click here for videos of Cambridge Museum of Technology.

November

Classic Bike & Car Show, NEC, Birmingham (Fri 12 – Sun 14 November 2010)
Click here for photos of 2008′s event.

You will notice that on some dates there is a clash of events. In some of these instances, I’m not sure which events I plan on attending yet, and in the others I have already decided. In all instances, however, I have listed all of the events so you can decide which ones you want to attend, if any!

Needless to say, as Summer progresses, I’ll do my best to get photos, videos and blog posts online covering as many events as I can!

To be sure of receiving notification when blog posts are published, feel free to subscribe to my blog’s RSS Feed.

Related posts:

1. Steam rallies, bike shows, iPhone 4, wedding, punctured air bed, caravan and “Ada”!
2. Cambridgeshire Steam Rally, Thurlow Steam Rally, "Gigantic" and my new phone!
3. Steam Rallies and the Rest of Summer