Photographing Hidden Sections

[Stephen Gard]

I seek the advice of some experienced photographers. I have a gig to photograph 100 LARGE static museum displays - locomotives and rolling stock.

Problems:

1. These items CANNOT be moved to a better location for photography
2. Many are partially obscured by steel stanchions, railings, or even permanent information boards.
3. The photos are for the museum's curatorial records, i.e. they are not meant to be decorative, eye-catching, part of a publicity leaflet, etc. No fancy angles or filters to be used. The images are to be a record of the exact appearance of each locomotive, coach, wagon, etc. Shot straight-out, full-length, side-on.
4. Quite a few of these objects are under cover, with skylights overhead here and there, and there is some halogen general lighting, and a spot or two. But low light is the norm.
5. The budget is miserable, so we are not going to hire a truck-load of lighting gear. They'll supply tungsten work-lights on tripods, though I've asked for white-LED daylight versions if they can manage it. Can fix false colours.
6. The space (walkway/footpath) between most exhibits is about 3 metres (10 feet) wide, so wide-angle shots would seem to be imperative, not only for width, but to capture the full height of each item. Fish-eye is out of the question (see Point 3).
7. I'm using the Canon EF-S 10-22mm f/3.5-4.5 USM and 15-85mm, with my Canon body, and the tallest tripod I could find. Lens distortion is going to be an issue.

My question really comes down to this - can I Photoshop out, say, an iron upright obscuring a loco (see pic) if I take a series of images, moving the camera along the same plane, left to right, and then 'Panorama' these images into one? Will the camera 'see around' the stanchion for some of that series of shots?

Note that the photo below is of one of the few exhibits which has lots of space around it, and daylight available. Few are like this, though.

These curatorial photos must show exactly what is hidden behind the stanchion; a clone stamp picking up a bit of the loco elsewhere and pasting it on will not do!

Any advice from those who have faced and dealt with a similar problem would be appreciated.

Stephen Gard

[Chuck Uebele]

You can try to take a couple shots just far enough to get the detail behind the post, then mask out the post and on the slight side shots, mask most everything up to the post - leave some overlap. Then try blend layers to merge them. You might have to manually do it.

[Trevor.Dennis]

I was thinking this was one for you Chuck.

If you align the camera perpendicular to the object, and directly in line with a stanchion, and take a photograph.  Then move the camera along the lens axis to the other side of the stanchion and take another photograph, then ISTM that the central part of the second photograph could be composited seamlessly to cover the stanchion.  Where it would fail would be the curve of the roof and the perspective of the wheels etc. but I would think that could be cloned from another part of the train.

[Chuck Uebele]

Just a quick sample: It took a little bit for transform with warp to line things up.

[Stephen Gard]

"Impressive. Obi Wan has taught you well."

Thank you for creating these examples: you have made it clear to me that by taking a little care with the initial shots, what I want to do will be possible.

Clicking the kudos button.

SDG