An international forum for garden railway modellers in all scales and gauges. It is free to join and is funded through voluntary contributions by its members. Many thanks to all those who keep it going.
Further to discussion over on my 'Distraction no. 2' thread about camera wagons, driver's eye views and 'The General' style train chases, this is the You Tube channel of a member of the East Devon 16mm group: https://www.youtube.com/@CharValleyRailway/videos - some of this footage was playing at Exeter earlier today.
Many of the camera angles are close to track level and some use a driver's eye view - Heather used that idea and refined it, using some better kit than I have. In particular, fans of drivers' eye views might like:
Thank you for the kind comments. The Camera is an Apeman action camera which is like a GoPro but not so expensive. It has a very wide angle lens which is not always ideal. Many of the close ups were shot using a DSLR camera with a zoom lens and autofocus. Lark radio microphones by the track avoid picking up the sound of the auto focus. The Apeman camera does not have a microphone socket for the radio receiver. In this case simultaneous filming on a mobile phone with the Lark radio receiver attached then matching the sound from that to the Apeman video in PremierPro during editing is possible.
I am still learning how to capture these models to best effect. Some of the other videos were designed to show our friendly local group meetings. These are cut down from longer videos which show every appearance of every loco which are only really of interest to their owners.
As a group we thought it would be nice to show the models in their usual setting rather than the indoor display layout we were showing at Exeter.
Heather
Char Valley Railway, 16mm scale, 45mm gauge.
Another video of this type posted to The Char Valley Railway YouTube channel. Filmed on another 32mm gauge local garden railway with improvements to the camera mount.
Enjoy
Heather
Char Valley Railway, 16mm scale, 45mm gauge.
Petersfield wrote: ↑Sat Apr 26, 2025 8:15 pm
One of the problems with any 'artistic' filming is the size of the camera compared to the locos and stock:
Fowler with camera.jpg
It's not huge but still causes 'fun and games' ( ) with clearances!
Nice behind the scenes shot, I was wondering about camera clearance while watching... Nice save under the bridge!
drewzero1 wrote: ↑Tue May 06, 2025 9:54 am
Nice behind the scenes shot, I was wondering about camera clearance while watching... Nice save under the bridge!
Yes, I gather Heather's spent quite a bit of time editing. Certainly when we were shooting it was rather stop start. Two of us spent serious time on hands and knees holding back and pruning foliage and unclipping and reclipping the camera onto the cab roof before and after bridges.
drewzero1 wrote: ↑Tue May 06, 2025 9:54 am
Nice behind the scenes shot, I was wondering about camera clearance while watching... Nice save under the bridge!
Yes, I gather Heather's spent quite a bit of time editing. Certainly when we were shooting it was rather stop start. Two of us spent serious time on hands and knees holding back and pruning foliage and unclipping and reclipping the camera onto the cab roof before and after bridges.
A few days ago, we tried a different approach on the Axe Valley Railway. This line has a lot of overhanging foliage so the stop start that worked for just a couple of bridges would not work here.
Having tried pushing a truck which, even with weights, was noisy and caused a slight vibration on the film. We found that attaching to the heavy live steam locomotive provided a much better solid filming base. The over the cab view is very atmospheric but creates problems with low infrastructure. The steam is lovely but can hide the view of the line.
This latest experiment hung a camera on the front of the locomotive. The Roundhouse Fowler has a dummy head lamp held by a small machine screw. Removing the lamp and using the machine screw to hold a custom-made bracket seems to work. The bracket was designed in Free CAD and printed in ABS to cope with the heat. Holding the camera slightly in front of the smoke box and resting lightly on the coupling it takes the screw fixing onto the standard GoPro system camera holder.
We achieved the stability and captured much more sound of the steam engine than we did from pushing a truck. The plastic of the bracket did soften but held up well enough and the camera took no damage at all. I guess the ideal would be to print in a resin that will not soften with heat. I might try printing the bracket without holes, make a silicon mould then cast in epoxy or other resin. Drill the holes and try that. A suitable filler or carbon fibre in the resin should reduce the brittleness of the resin casting.
Making custom fittings to attach to standard GoPro fittings opens up more possibilities of getting the camera in exactly the right, stable position seems to be the way to go. With live steam locos dealing with the hot surfaces is another factor to consider.
Many thanks to Petersfield who has helped and who provided the still images.
All videos on the Char Valley Railway YouTube Chanel are edited in Premier Pro. The stl file for the bracket is freely available on request.
Heather
Char Valley Railway, 16mm scale, 45mm gauge.
Yes, I thought it most ingenious. I haven't forgotten about posting my own footage (using a rattly flat or one plank wagon and 25 year+ old camera tech) once I've edited a couple of bits out. I would be interested to compare them.
Next step - a Russian Arm? - I have been playing with some of my old Lego and Meccano and trying to figure something out I can take to Heather, though so far I've had serious trouble with the gyrostabiliser elements and I don't think it would be very mobile. Maybe a mobile trackside mounting of some sort?
) with clearances!
