About..


A simple, robust and well proven design - the running gear of a QJ. Daban, Jan, 1st. 2003

Technical stuff - Browser compatibility issues

This web site has been optimized and designed for Internet Explorer, Firefox and Google Chrome.

Most of the pages contain Java Scripts and some ActiveX controls. You need to have JavaScript and ActiveX options enabled in your browser to view the pages correctly.

Digital imaging and picture processing

I'd like to drop first a few words on picture resolution and processing. Pictures in the Internet are a compromise between optimal resolution and practical picture size. For the sake of acceptable download times, it is inevitable to compress digital pictures.

Some people reject the idea of digitally processed and reworked pictures totally, saying that they should be published as slides or negatives on a 'as-it-is' basis.

Chacun à sa façon, but there are reasons to work a bit on your pictures. First of all, a good reproduction - in any media - requires work. Photographers for instance, that developed their papers copies back in the old days, used to say: "A print is never finished". The same is true for digital pictures. The real work often only starts at home, when the photo is taken.

Second: Digital photography is different in many aspects to conventional photography. For instance, digital pictures need re-sharpening wit software tools because the built in sharpening algorithms in the cameras cannot be controlled as in the software. So re-sharpening is required if you want to take full advantage of the optical capabilities of your digital camera. A conventional slide, on the other hand, was as good as it came out of the camera and a negative print was as good as you got it from the lab.

Another aspect gets relevant with pictures for the web: With the required jpeg compression, picture inevitably loose a great deal on brilliance and sharpness. This means that they have to be re-sharpened, adjusted in saturation, contrast and tonal range to appear authentic in the low resolution in the internet.

Thanks to the development in digital technology, the hobby photographer today gets affordable cameras, tools equipment. We got opportunities that were entirely left to the profs only a decade ago.


	Photoshop: Nothing magic - just revealing tonal range, colors and saturation of the reality ! The example shows the difference: Left: An image taken at poor light conditions - just the way it came out of the camera. Right: The same picture after having been adjusted carefully in Photoshop.

Neither any negative print nor any slide comes with the brilliance and expressiveness of a National-Geographic picture. Who hasn't experienced yet that some results appeared flaw and inexpressive compared to the own memories? A picture, in whatever technology, captures just a portion of the tonal range and color spectrum daylight hours have and human eyes can see.

That's were picture editing and enhancement starts and makes sense. It's about making pictures looking as natural and 'real' as possible. Why do I bother about all this? Because railroad photography is more than just documenting trains to me!

Hope you enjoy this site !

Best Regards, Markus Fischer

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Copyright on pictures

Generally, and where not mentioned otherwise, are all pictures on that site taken by myself. The copyright is with me, or the respective photographers.

Technical means to protect pictures in the world wide web are limited. The Internet was designed to share information, not to hide it, and thats how I perceive it, too.
This web is meant to share my hobby with you and other enthusiasts, and I don't regard it as a business. Therefore, I decided not to disfigure images with oversized labels as many other websites do - so you may enjoy them unspoilt and in best quality possible. In return, I expect you to respect the copyright.

Please contact me if you wish to obtain some pictures for private or commercial purpose. Note that the resolution of the images shown in this web is limited to the standard resolution of internet browsers (72 dpi) and as such not suitable for download/ printout.

If you wish to reuse pictures from this web for a none commercial purpose, please do label them with "Picture by www.markusworldwide.ch". Please note that international copyright rules generally apply to both private and professional use.

Markus Fischer, Switzerland. email to: contact(at)markusworldwide.ch

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