Now what has she got me into

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Over coffee in M&S, ".....will you 'have a look at' the video Iain (our son) sent me it's showing on its side and I only need 30 seconds of it." This was where I made my mistake I said OK, so the next bit went "...and when I start writing for the 2019 exam I want them to have to join two bits of video together and I thought I could use 15 seconds of a train departing in daylight and fifteen seconds of it arriving back in the dark." My fault again I showed her the Peco phone kiosk which I'd modified with a dim yellow grain of wheat bulb through the top of the back wall.

I do have a rake of Pullmans with their table lights, I have a non-functioning Western Courier which with its ringfield gears removed could be on the rear of the departing train. Then I could fit it out with a battery and a couple of lights plus the cab light on the front, the trouble is the building platform and station lights I've been installing are all of the good old BR gaslight level of illumination, so i'll have to figure out a way to make them just bright enough to be captured on video. My next question should be "... and when is this needed by?...." I just can't bring myself to ask.

In case you are thinking this is valuable information you could sell to those taking the exam, It's something they will already know they will have to do. They will have to do it with the resources provided in a fixed time and you don't know which exam or when and where in the world it may take place, so any advice any of you can offer in filming video in low light would be appreciated. Besides the usual digital compacts, smart phones etc I have a Canon 450D still with its kit lens and a half decent tripod.

[Tom@Crewe]

Coffee in M&S. Money bags.

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Two free drink vouchers! and a Dine In for a Tenner for £1.50, we know how to live it up

[NakatsuHime]

Marriage is like being in the Army. Never volunteer for anything.

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Software companies who don't fix their own problems but tell customers how to get around them don't you just love them. Part of "what she's got me into now" requires me to correct the orientation of video footage taken on a phone held upright. Trawling through the advice I came upon a post which said "download M...... Video Converter" (it was in the wrong format for my software). "I've got that somewhere though i" yes I had, an expired trial version on this computer" chance here to get a full copy on exes. thinks I.
So I download the latest version from their website and stick it on the Gold Card that we use for business. for which I get a link to the software and an activation key. So far so good, (can't last). Run the downloaded installer, Run the software, up pops a message box "Invalid Key" This is where I should have smelled the rat, the activation issues section on their support site is bigger than the rest put together. Click on the link for Invalid key, it asks for ID and key, and supplies a link for a new download and my key that I'd just supplied. Then it becomes blindingly obvious what the problem is, the link they give takes you to a download for an installer two versions newer than the one on their download site.
Talk about the right hand not knowing what the left foot's doing.
Time to do the task about 10 minutes including watching the 3 minute original, and the 40 second rotated and cut down version.
Time spent friggin' around with stupid installation software about an hour and a quarter.
Software companies ................ don't you just love them?

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This one's going to run. Discussing what was needed it turns out the candidate's offerings won't be assessed on technical quality, so I can do this job using small and available webcams. I've already mounted one onto the battery powered rack which came from a party balloon airship, to make a tracking camera, and I'm on the hunt for a motorless class 37 to go on the end of the requested steam special. A quick rough shot showed my normal four coach train looked stupid when seen from the platform, and disappeared out of shot too quickly, so it starts with four additional coaches and a diesel on the end all out of sight behind the camera. My Western Courier is just too heavy to go on the end with the gears taken off the ringfield and a poor match to anything that can pull the train, so a gutted 37 seems the answer.

[Admin4]

i can sympathise my other half has roped me into helping set up her classroom this weekend kids are back in on monday and its still a building site

as for filming in low light i would have said your 450D on a tripod but check it does video first

either way good luck with it

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This is where G scale or something bigger helps, there's no way I can shove the 450D under the platform canopy!

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Well the job's done, the quality I needed was easily provided by a little Veho video camera mounted on an improvised bracket fastened to my tripod. The night time scene turned out easier than I feared. After dark just one 30W lamp just below baseboard level pointing up to the ceiling gave just the level of exposure needed.
The Western was going to prove tricky to illuminate, but I used it as an excuse to pick up a class 37 which was just right for the job. I took the gears off the ringfield bogie, took out the ballast weight and installed battery holder with two AA cells and routed two thin wires past the leading bogie and left them behind the bufferbeam. A single bright white led cut from a self adhesive strip with two fine wires soldered onto the pins stuck to the nose door produced a dramatic approach, obviously a loco, but no detail visible against the light from the led. For the final shot I drew the rake of illuminated pullmans into the platform by hand with the track voltage wound up full to ensure that the table lamps all lit up.
Bung it all together in two rough cut sequences and we have the resources for the candidates to edit down to length put on some music provided by the exam board and add titles and credits. The best bit is I have to be paid to ensure the board have the right to use them!

Sorry chaps but I can't show you them till the exam has been sat.

[Forfarian]

Those magic words- could you - would you do a little job for me!
A few years ago my wife came home from school and announced the kids are entering the local Scarecrow competition!
Could you make a life size Bamse? - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bamse_(St._Bernard)
With the help of a roll of chicken wire and various sized fencing wire a life sized Bamse lookalike was constructed in my garage, the kids at school covered it in old sheepskin rugs etc added a life sized Norwegian sailor and ended up winning first prize.
12 Months later - could you? Turn Bamse into a pig?
with a bit! of cutting and remodeling Bamse became a pig with wings!
I cant remember what the theme was but with the pig on a stand at 45 deg the title was "Pigs might Fly and the price of bacon goes up"
It was great to see the look on those support for learning kids faces when they won first prize again.
Add to that Xmas trees made from PET bottles. Wooden swords for roman soldiers etc etc, I was relieved when my wife finally retired.
All I get now is an A4 list of "Things to Do"!!!!!!!!

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I have an annoying health problem, some damaged tissue on my spine has become home to the shingles virus. Every now and then it flares up and plays havoc with the messages going back and forth along my Vagus nerve. It's most alarming trick is a convincing imitation of the start of a heart attack, an ECG is needed to show that it's not. So at 8:00pm on Monday we had a paramedic with an enormous bag of gear doing an ECG getting the results checked whilst downloading the details to a ruggedised iPad. Of course the chief examiner was already dreaming up a scenario for some more IT questions, so while we waited for the results to be analysed, I was being used to demo the things they could do. I suppose I shouldn't complain, it wasn't, and someone has realised what it's costing and authorised a full assessment of my condition so that I can handle it myself without having to call anyone out.