Hi everyone. Today one of the guys on my operations crew on the NKP brought a new toy: a laptop with a program called Helicon Focus connected to his Nikon DSLR. Helicon Focus is an amazing program - what it does is interface with your DSLR, and then controls the DSLR to take multiple photos of a scene with different focus points and stitches them together to provide essentially unlimited depth of field. The result is a razor-sharp photo from front to back. Here are a few examples (though the truth is that you really can't appreciate what this program can do without seeing the full-resolution photos). First, a photo of Bellevue Yard - this is about a 7' depth of field from front to back: Next is a shot of the engine terminal, with about a 6 1/2-foot depth of field: Finally, a shot of two Berks up front, with diesels and the water tower in the back; this is about a 4' depth of field, and notice how tack-sharp the diesels and water tank are in the back of the Berks: Amazing! John C.
Wow indeed, those are some great looking photos. Doesn't hurt that the subject matter is pretty awesome in the first place!
Well, the yard is pretty big; it's divided into an EB yard (6 tracks) and a WB yard (six tracks) with a main line bypass track in the middle; each ladder track is about 16' long. John C.
If you do a web search for Helicon Focus, you'll find it. The key is the Helicon Focus "Remote" which is what interfaces between your computer and DSLR to take multiple images automatically (obviously, you have to have a tripod for this). I think the yard photo above required 16 separate photos at different focal points. We were going to do another setup, but the program told us it would require 96 separate photos; we passed on that one. John C.
