Shooting cab-view videos on my N-scale layout

I'll spoil it right away. This post is not going to end with a spectacular success. But it's not going to be a complete failure, either. So while it's not a recipe everyone should blindly follow, it still contains some information that people might find valuable. That's what the blogs are for, right?

I was thinking about shooting a video from the driver's perspective on my N-scale layout for a long, long time. I was simply curious what it would look like... The challenge of doing that was pretty obvious - the camera had to be tiny, the focus had to be right, the movement had to be smooth, etc.

After careful consideration I believed I had found the equipment that would be good for my first attempt. And I've purchased two products:

• Tomytec motorized chassis
• SQ8 miniature video camera

Let's start with the chassis. This item was supposed to be a base for the camera, and I expected it to provide a smooth forward movement. The model I've chosen for this purpose is Tomytec TM-04 and it's priced at around $20 if you know where to look (Plaza Japan).

Here's the content of the box. It includes...

...the chassis with a preinstalled motor...

...a pair of couplers, a piece of weight, some details...

...and a manual (in Japanese).

The documentation is not very useful due to the language used. There's however a mention of the 12V DC, which seems the same as in case of my Tomix cleaning car. Coincidence? Don't think so... Tomix and Tomytec are one company. I better be careful with the voltage and not go above the limit.

Let's check out the camera now. First of all - this item was cheap. Actually very cheap - something around $10. Considering the price the content of the package is pretty impressive. It consists of:

• the camera itself
• a relatively well written manual
• a camera clip
• a charging cable

The camera is very small. It's a cube 2cm tall, wide and deep. Should fit on an N-scale layout well!

It's time for the very first test photo. I've placed the camera on my layout and... click!

Well, the first shot is not really good at all. There are at least three major problems with the captured image. Let's discuss them one by one...

Problem #1: the focus is somewhere far behind. In the above photo the elements in the front are all blurry, while the barely visible far items are sharp. This is really not a surprise. I didn't expect the camera to be capable of macro photography out of the box. That's why I also bought the following set of lenses. Those are aimed towards mobile phones and are extremely cheap on Ebay.

Without any extra lenses anything closer than 20cm from the camera is completely out of focus and the real crispness can be captured only when an object is around 40cm from the device. Once the macro lenses are added the focusing distance changes to around 8cm from the camera. And that's much, much better suited for recording a tiny train layout. Here's a photo to prove it - the foreground items look fine now.

The entire setup seems much more professional, too. Almost like a miniature SLR.

Problem #2 is about wrong colors. In the picture everything looks purple. That is caused by the type of lighting in my layout room. A good camera offers a selection of white balance settings to compensate for any lighting conditions, including a working auto mode, too. The cheap SQ8 device does not handle white balance well and it is calibrated for natural daylight only. So if you want to film inside, you need a light source of 6000K temperature or more. In other words: a very, very cold white illumination. Once this is used, the white balance issue is gone.

Problem #3 is about the overall image quality. But let's be honest - did I expect more from a cheap and tiny camera? No, I did not. This is not a GoPro. The quality will always be mediocre, even if we deliver a ton of light (which is still needed for the recording to be acceptable at all).

OK, it's time to put my video setup to a test...

Unfortunately I have quickly discovered another issue. While the Tomytec chassis's movement was pretty smooth, it was not able to go at a very low pace. Its minimum speed was way too fast for me.

That's why I've created a secondary setup with a Peco wagon kit. This contraption was pushed by a DCC locomotive capable of very slow and very smooth movement.

The outcome is the following video. It's a mix of recordings from both setups. You can probably recognize which shot is which by noticing the speed and listening to the motor sound.

Well, smooth ride it is not. Turns out that recording of an N-scale layout is very sensitive to any imperfections of the track. Even the slightest jumps - especially on switches - result in big disturbances in the video. The fact that my layout is tiny does not help at all. The loop is less than 2m long and it features 4 switches. So it's even difficult to capture a few seconds of video without unwanted jerks.

But in the end, the technology works. If my layout was larger and if it featured longer continuous  segments without switches, the video could actually turn out pretty good. Once the focus issue and the color inaccuracy are fixed, the only problem is the overall image quality which is something we have to accept. At least until a better miniature camera is released. As soon as that happens, I will re-visit this topic... And hopefully I have a larger layout by then :)