West Somerset Railway General Discussion

I'm a 'glass half full' gal. I wouldn't carry a camera around with me, so I wouldn't have the shots at all without the 'phone.

Now then, reccomendation for a handbag-friendly (i.e., small) up to date digital camera good enough for the shots we intend to publish?

Robin

 

.. and film is expensive, I have used "motor drive" on both film and digital. Yes, it does give a few good photos but it also means that you fail to get that one really well composed shot. I have now reverted to framing a good composition and firing 2 or so shots to hopefully catch rods down.
I find using film a very good exercise in discipline. I once set myself the task of doing an entire days photo charter on one film. I got 36 well composed shots. Trouble was, the weather was very dark, so it was really a training exercise.
I have been doing steam photography in a small way for 40+ years and I am still learning from my mistakes.

 

We are going waaaaaaay off topic however I have a bit of experience in this field. Mr Yorkshireman is correct.

When I'm not cleaning locos, drinking tea or shovelling coal, one of my less grubby hobbies is astrophotography. I have access to a semi professional observatory where the owner and I take some seriously deep sky images of star clusters, nebulae and galaxies. We are in the middle of upgrading the imaging kit to an expensive cooled CCD device costing the same as a reasonably priced car. Taking photos of planets and the moon however is far easier and can be done with more simple kit. Some of the best results can be achieved with a simple I-phone where the subject is recorded as a moving image. There is some excellent software available that stacks the best 50% of all the frames to produce a final high resolution image. This deals with noise, artefacts etc. as not all frames will be affected equally. Mr Yorkshireman's idea of selecting the best single frame is in essence, the same technique.

I would love to post a "then and now" image of Betelgeuse but due to the speed of light being quite tardy, I can only manage a "then" which isn't very interesting. As I type this, it has probably gone supernova but we may not see the results for some time yet.

Anyway, enough of this pointless chatter. I'll put Ian and Robin's book on my Christmas list for 2018. Only a signed copy will do ! One recurring feature that I notice between old and new shots is that we appear to have more trees on the hills.

 

Define handbag friendly My last boss but one had a designer handbag in which you could hide a small dog. Seriously I have had some good results from a Sony DSC-WX350. It is 3 3/4 x 2 1/4 and 1 in thick

Incidentally I met Howard Smith at the IRO reception last night.

Dave

 

This goes back to the old adage @Jamessquared posted!

Personally I would recommend the Panasonic Lumix range for a high-quality handbag-sized camera. My girlfriend has a Sony which is excellent when it works, but tends to crash at just the wrong moment.

 

My sister has one from the Lumix range bought 3-4 years ago and that produces good images in poor light. I recommended after reading that they had good sensors. She looked on Amazon but could not make up her mind on which one, so I took her to Park Cameras. They recommended one, which although slightly more than her budget, she was very happy with the photos she took.

 

A good chap, Howard. During the snows of the 86/87 winter which made a bit of a mess of the services from Waterloo, and getting home to Tenterden impossible, I slept on his parents' sofa in Twickenham.

A particular memory of the was finding that we had a buffet car unit, driver, guard and steward who all live in Shepperton and were happy to get stuck between Waterloo and Shepperton but not further away. So the Shepperton line had a two hourly service with a buffet car...

Robin

 

Don't worry about it. These things come and go. Give it a year and the mix will be different. In the mean time, make the most of what you do have. The shot of the 7F and 4MT on a blood-and-custard rake is superb

 

Caption Competition:

'New Quantock Belle livery does not achieve universal approval.'



Photo by Bev Zed

 

A very gentle reminder about re-use of images found on wsr.org.uk - This work is licenced under a Creative Commons Licence. Any re-use of the above image must conform to the requirements of the Creative Commons Licence.

More

Thanks

Steve

 

Thank goodness that's finally left us! What's the plan for it on the WSR; convert back to a BSK or restore it as is?

Sent from my Moto G (4) using Tapatalk

 

DfT announces HS2 budget cuts.

 

Steve

Wholly understood. I thought I had complied. If not, do PM me and I will make the necessary changes.

Robin

 

Thanks, Robin. Partly compliant. I'll mention it here to a wider audience. Will be in touch later on this and other matters.

The requirements (of re-use) are listed on the document on the link that is provided under the image.

The key requirements under this particular Creative Commons licence are "You must give appropriate credit, provide a link to the license..."

In your recent re-use, a credit was given (although the name was not in full) but there was no link to the licence. Provision of the credit and the link then requires subsequent re-use under the same requirement.

Goodness knows I've lost count of how many times I've forgotten to add those things when re-using images from wsr.org.uk on here and elsewhere. So I too need a reminder.

Steve

 

Was this coach based at the GWSR previously then? Perhaps it was up the headshunt at Toddington.

 

http://www.cs.vintagecarriagestrust.org/se/CarriageInfo.asp?Ref=5012

 

It's been sat in various places in the yard at Winchcombe for at least the past 5 years looking tether sad and decrepit. I was told it was bought with the idea of being able to run some sort of diesel autotrain but it was so low down the priority list it might as well not have been on there at all, so good to see it's moved somewhere where it hopefully has a brighter future.

Sent from my Moto G (4) using Tapatalk

 

Fair enough but it's likely to be "nobody's baby" wherever it goes. No-one could love a face like that.

PH

 

Quite, but you'd hope that if someone has actively bought it there must be at least an intention to do something with it, even if it is optimistic.

Sent from my Moto G (4) using Tapatalk

 

What it does show I suspect is that even the humble Mark 1 is becoming increasingly difficult to acquire in anything other than very poor condition - which might perhaps concentrate minds on the priority afforded to facilities to overhaul, maintain and store carriages. The days of picking up a cheap but runnable carriage look to be well and truly over.

Tom