Photographing small miniature buildings

[Railphotog]

In a previous post, I showed how I took photos inside one of my HO model railroad structures. I got back into the hobby to be able to photograph such creations, as I didn't have the photo gear to do so when I was modeling as a teenager. I've had a lot of fun taking photos of my models, and thinking up ways to do scenes that I think up.

Back when I was shooting film, I used a 28mm preset wide angle lens into which I added a pinhole aperture. With this setup, I could get great closeup shots. Switching to digital, the 28mm lens became a 56mm, and lost its ability to take photos as I had in the past.

With the acquistion of a wide angle zoom, a Tamron 11-18mm, I can almost duplicate what I was shooting with the pinhole lens.

Here's how I did the interior of a small building:

The small shed on the left is in HO (1/87) scale, the larger one is in O scale (1/48), set beside my Canon XSi with the Tamron lens to show their sizes. The following photos are of the smaller HO scale building:

The photo setup. The lens won't focus close enough, so it is set back a bit, shooting at f/22. The rear of the building has been removed. The cardboard I'm holding is to reduce the amount of light falling on the outside of the building.

This is what the camera captured:

After cropping, straightening and various tasks, this is the final photo of the interior. The building is 2-1/2" by 1-1/2".

I'll post some of my other efforts in future posts, along with photos of the interior of the larger structure.