What first thing you notice in a model train photo to tell you something is a model and not prototype? For me, it's probably the couplers. Second would be any LPBs. No matter how real they look, they never look like real people to me. So, maybe if I took photos that showed no couplers and no people, they would be more convincing.
What about you?
Handlaid track kills the realism faster than anything for me. Also power poles with no lines on them.
For me , the giveaway is when you stare at the LP's for a half hour and they haven't moved ........probably a model ....or a very lethargic LP .
T
For me, one giveaway are the handrails. One of my N scale locos has rails at an unrealistic diameter of 5.6", another is slightly better at 3".
The flanges on the shiny railroad wheels usually give it away. I'm guilty as charged on that. I agree with TJ, it always amazes me is how long people can stay still in photographs. It must get tiring.
I think its the windows. I a few people I know have gone as far as to get microscope cover slips and refit the windows of their models with them. How they get them to fit into some of the window frames is beyond me.
There are almost too many giveaways to list, but some for me are couplers, LPBs, handlaid track, most turnouts, wheel widths, wheel flanges, truck widths, handrails, trees, power poles without wires, power poles with wires, car and locomotive ride heights, and most unpainted wood structures.
That said, I don't think that we should allow those anomalies to overpower our appreciation of good modelling, creativity, and artful presentation, nor should they deter anyone from sharing photos of their work.
Wayne
Interesting that people say hand laid track, what is is it about it? I'm coming from a UK perspective, but most RTR track is not as accurately proportioned as hand laid track and it allows for more flowing turnout combinations See <!-- m --><a class="postlink" href="http://jsmithwright.demonweb.co.uk/hostedimages/signal%20box%20close%20up.jpg">http://jsmithwright.demonweb.co.uk/host ... e%20up.jpg</a><!-- m --> for an example of good track (in my opinion)
I would agree that properly done a handlaid turnout tends to look better than a commercial one. But the track itself when handlaid looks terrible with it's one oversized spike every 6th-7th tie or so and no tie plates. Track that has been soldered to the ties and therefore has no spikes at all looks even more unrealistic. Today's better brands of flextrack in the smaller codes are light years ahead of handlaying IMHO.
What you are basically saying is that poor quality modelling is a giveaway!
Hand laid track "may be" superior in detail over commercial available flextrack but that requires details like seen on this two examples of a German switch for H0pur. That is usually not the case for most hand laid tracks I see on the web.
http://www.h0pur.de/images/weichen2.jpg
http://www.h0pur.de/images/weichen3.jpg
I see the biggest advantage of hand laid tracks and especial switches in a more elegant track plan in tight space with direct attached switches to each other. We have a lot of examples in this forum where hand laid switches permit elegant track plans I can not implement with standard Atlas switches.
But we should never forget, it is a hobby only. The one who builds it must have the fun no one else!
I will agree on handlaid track. There's really no reason to handlay anymore unless you like doing it. There was a time when the only way to get smaller code rail was to handlay, and back then just having the smaller rail profile would make the handlaid track more realistic. I would still claim a properly handlaid code 70 or 55 would look better for a logging layout or branch line than Atlas code 100 Snap Track. But these days, properly weathered ME track looks much better than anything one could handlay, with the possible exception of those who take the time and money to go the proto-87 route.
doctorwayne Wrote:...That said, I don't think that we should allow those anomalies to overpower our appreciation of good modelling, creativity, and artful presentation, nor should they deter anyone from sharing photos of their work.
talltim Wrote:What you are basically saying is that poor quality modelling is a giveaway!
What really matters is that a person does the best they can with the materials they have at hand or can afford to buy. It's also important that they are pleased with what they do regardless of what others think, especially those that know they can do better. "Quality" is in the eyes of the beholder, but needs to be tempered by what they are looking at and who did it. Modeling doesn't have to look like exact miniature replicas of the read world, there are things that one cannot control, but they do the best they can, and not everyone needs to like it. Take a painting for instance, an artist paints what he sees, feels or thinks. It doesn't have to look like a photograph to be acceptable, just something that the artist thought was appropriate. There are paintings and sketches that are worth in the thousands or millions of dollars that, in my opinion, look like an old painter's drop cloth or something at about a young child's scribbling done with crayons. For me, I would be reluctant to spend any amount of money for either; this is "poor quality" as far as I'm concerned but to others it is "art".
Some things you cannot change in modeling regardless. Manufacturers, for instance, can't make handrails to scale, they'd fall apart, they try their best to make couplers look to scale, but they can never get it quite right and they can't make LPB's look like real people no matter what they do. It is difficult to scale many other things, but like an artist, a modeler creates what they think is the right thing, and they might not even care what others think about it.
A while back we had a photo challenge, "is it real or scale" and it was amazing to number of scale models that had no, "dead givaways" and were extremely hard to detect as scale.
faraway Wrote:Hand laid track "may be" superior in detail over commercial available flextrack but that requires details like seen on this two examples of a German switch for H0pur. That is usually not the case for most hand laid tracks I see on the web.
http://www.h0pur.de/images/weichen2.jpg
http://www.h0pur.de/images/weichen3.jpg
I see the biggest advantage of hand laid tracks and especial switches in a more elegant track plan in tight space with direct attached switches to each other. We have a lot of examples in this forum where hand laid switches permit elegant track plans I can not implement with standard Atlas switches.
But we should never forget, it is a hobby only. The one who builds it must have the fun no one else!
That's beautiful realistic looking track Reinhard, and in this case, I'd say it's the grass that is the give away, but again, it is a great scene. We shouldn't look too up close and look at the overall picture to see if something looks 'real' to you.
Even so, enjoyment is number 1 prio. Who cares if the person doesn't move, cars are always parked, we have wifi telegraph poles and flanges too crude etc etc...
Koos
My "giveaways" are the depth of field in the photo, the sky (if it can be seen), any shadows (or lack thereof) and the other things that have been mentioned; LPB,s, Couplers. etc.