I can’t remember ever seeing a thread on this coming up. Let’s see your models next to the real thing! I’ll start, here’s Ann Arbor 2834 looking a little bit better than its prototype (at least it still exists!). As the end suggests, my choice of orange wasn’t far off. And for good measure, the PRR heritage with the real thing, several years back.
You can make some fun pics that way. I have no idea why anyone would limit it to N scale rolling stock. For anyone who wants to try this, here's a tip. You're more likely to get both the model and the real thing both in decent focus if you focus between them. Which was easy in the age of manual focus. These days you need to include something in between in the frame. Like, for instance, the hydrant in the cabeese pic. Then beat on the autofocus until it picks that to get the range. It helps if you point the camera straight at that unimportant object at the edge, make autofocus select it, then aim better and shoot.
I'm not criticizing. If you didn't want to be inclusive and put it in "Railfan Photos" that's fine with me. It was just a suggestion.
Fascinating project! The 1st two photographs use natural lighting for both prototype and model, and more consistently depict the color of both prototypes and models. But the last photograph uses flash to illuminate the model, yet overcast natural light for the prototype, distorting the colors differently, and magnifying their apparent difference. I think if the 3rd model were naturally lighted, and tripods were used for both the model and the camera to allow long exposures with slower f/ratios (increasing depth of field to focus both subjects), the real difference in color would be reduced. You could also build a simple platform to hold both camera and model atop a single tripod, to make setting up the shot much easier. It would need to allow you to adjust the distance between model and camera to match the apparent sizes of model and prototype. Thanks for posting your project!
