If this is a technique you’ve always been interested in trying out, or you’re just curious to see how exactly one makes a panorama (especially one featuring a train) – from camera to computer – read on.

Making a panorama

Taking the shots

The first part of any panorama is getting the shots that you need to blend later on. As a beginner looking to do a railroad panorama, I would suggest you try to capture a train that is not moving. Whether it is tied up for the night or just stopped at a station, having everything stationary is best – moving objects can cause issues and anomalies in the stitching process.

These days, programs are usually good enough to accommodate photos not taken on a tripod. But you’ll want to remain in the same spot, and most importantly, keep the camera at the same angle within each shot. Rotate your body to get a wide field of view across multiple shots. Make sure to overlap – 40% overlap is usually the rule of thumb – so the stitching program will have room to blend the images together. It doesn’t matter if you shoot horizontally or vertically, but if you want to get the highest resolution image, shoot vertically (it will likely require more shots to capture the full field of view, however).

   
   
Here’s an example of seven shots I took of an M7 making a station stop at Harlem-125th Street. Note how I’ve rotated along the field of view, while allowing some overlap between the photos. Since the train was not moving, I was able to capture it across multiple shots.

Things that move

If you’ve tried the stationary panoramas out, or your feeling a bit bold, you can go for a moving object. If you’d like to capture a moving train, for example, what you need to do is capture the ENTIRE train in one photograph (unless you want the train extending off the side of the image). For this reason, it is better to capture your photos in a horizontal format, so you can better capture the entire train. If you capture the train using multiple shots, because it was moving it will appear in different places each time, and thus impossible to stitch properly.

If you’re shooting a passenger train, after the train has passed, then capture the rest of the shots of your field of view. If you’re capturing a long freight (where in this case you probably would have the train extending off the edge of the image) it is probably best to get your other shots before the train arrives, since it may take so long for the train to fully pass that the sunlight has changed, making it very hard to stitch those images together.

 
  
  

Here’s an example of five shots I took of a P32AC-DM on the Hudson Line, passing West Point. Note how in the first shot I capture the moving train, and then in the subsequent shots capture the field of view after the train has passed.

This is what those photos look like stitched together in a final panorama.

What program to use?

In order to make a panorama from multiple shots, you’ll need some program to stitch the images together. There are various free options out there, like AutoStitch, which I used regularly years ago (and was what I used for all of the original panoramas for the entire Harlem Line in the Metro-North Panorama Project), but these days I use Photoshop’s Photomerge tool. If you’re serious about photography, Photoshop and Lightroom really are the best programs for you to be using to make your images better. They’re the industry standards.

Using Photoshop’s Photomerge tool

Photomerge is relatively basic, from the File menu, go to Automate and choose Photomerge. In the window that pops up, select the images you’d like to stitch together using browse. For almost all instances you don’t need to change any of the default preferences. Auto layout usually does the trick, and you want to keep Blend Images Together on, as it blends any color discrepancies between the images, to make it look like one complete image in the end. Depending on your lens and camera, your photos may have some Vignetting, or a darker ring around the edge of your photo. If that is the case, you can check off Vignette Removal (I prefer to remove any vignetting in Lightroom prior, and if you use both programs that is what I’d suggest).

The menu showing where Photomerge is, and the Photomerge window.

Now you have a stitched image…

Your photos may now be blended together, but it isn’t quite yet perfect or how you imagined it. You’ll need to crop unwanted jagged edges, and make minor adjustments with the warp tool in order to get that perfect panorama.

The stitched image that Photoshop spits out from the seven Harlem-125th photos. Note that each individual photo is a layer, which allows you to fix errors in stitching if there are any. Provided that everything looks good, you should merge all your layers before proceeding.

Working on the image – cropping and minor edits with the warp tool make the final image.

The completed panorama.

Questions about the process

Why make a panorama out of multiple pictures using stitching, when many new cameras and phones have a dedicated panorama feature?
The panorama feature you’ll find in newer cameras or phones requires you to pan the camera across the field of view, and it will automatically assemble the panorama for you. While this is, of course, easier, it doesn’t necessarily yield the highest quality result. If you’ve ever wanted to print out your photos, you’ll find that the resolution of an in-camera panorama job is low. In contrast, the West Point panorama above has a final pixel size of 14329×4000 – sufficient resolution to print the final image at a width of nearly six FEET. Now I’m not saying you’ll ever have to do such a thing, but you’ll get a higher quality, more detailed image that is croppable if you desire by stitching.

What are some fun things you can do with panoramas?
Once you get the whole “moving train” thing down, you can try this funky technique, which I’ve always liked. Capture the train entering your field of view on the left side, and then capture it yet again as it leaves your field of view on the right side. It looks something like this:

What other methods can you use to capture wide fields of view?
Besides panoramas and stitching, you can capture wide fields of view with very wide angle lenses, and fish-eye lenses. A wide angle does capture a wider field than a normal lens, but it can never capture as much of the field of view as a stitched image could. Fish-eyes are nice (and I enjoy them very much!) but the distortion they cause is a little too much for most people.

But sometimes there is distortion in panoramic images. How do you minimize that?
From an artistic perspective, I tend to enjoy the distortion you can get in a fish-eye or panoramic shot. It is almost like a visual cue that what you’re seeing is something beyond the capability of your own two eyes. In terms of railroad photography, it also introduces a break in the abundance of long, straight lines from railroad tracks and platforms. However, it isn’t for everyone. In a stitched image, you’ll get more distortion the closer you are to the subject you’re photographing. If you’re capturing a train that is on a platform (like the Harlem-125th panorama above), it is very difficult to achieve no distortion. In the Hudson Line panorama, however, there is no noticeable distortion, as I was far away from my subject.

What is your favorite panorama from the Panorama Project?
Although I definitely consider the photos I initially took of the Harlem Line to be subpar considered to my work today, I’ve always liked this photo of Harlem-125th Street for some reason. I have a printed version hanging on my cubicle wall at work.

That just about wraps up today’s post – have more questions about panoramas? Have a panorama you’d like to share? Want to make a suggestion for a future Trains & Modern Photography post? Drop a line in the comments!

Since I’ve mentioned EXIF data, it is certainly worth mentioning this other wonderful part of modern photo. EXIF stands for EXchangeable Image File format, which is basically a way that a photo’s metadata is saved. Each photo taken with your camera has this data, which usually records the date and time the photo was taken (provided you have this set correctly in your camera), the camera make and model, and the settings used to capture the photo – usually the mode setting, ISO, aperture, and exposure. In some cameras you can set specific copyrights (my camera adds my full name and website address to the EXIF data) or other messages. If you have a GPS device linked to your camera, GPS coordinates for when the shot was taken (including the altitude in some instances) are also recorded.

Getting GPS data on your camera

So how do you go about getting your camera hooked up to a GPS device? Many new cameras are coming out with GPSes built right in. One of the reasons why I fell in love with my main camera, the Canon 6D, is the built in GPS. The Sony SLT-A99, Nikon D5300, Canon 7D Mark II, Pentax K-5 IIs, and Pentax K-S1 are all examples of DSLRs with built-in GPSes. If you don’t have one of those, however, that does not mean you are out of luck. Most manufacturers make external GPS loggers that connect to your camera. The good thing about these devices is that they add the GPS coordinates directly to the photo’s EXIF data. However, they cost about $200 dollars for one actually made by Nikon or Canon.

If you’re not looking to spend a lot of money, a good alternative is a cell phone GPS logger. Provided you have a smartphone, you should be able to download a few free or low-cost apps that use your phone’s built-in GPS to record your location. The difficulty with this option is that you’ll have to add the GPS data to your photos as a secondary step later on. The app’s software should make this easy, however, you just need to ensure that your phone and your camera’s time info are set the same way – it will link the GPS points it has saved with the info about when each photo was taken and match them up. You can search your respective app store and find a geotagging app for you, or try out Geotag Photos Pro, which I have used in the past and it worked well.

Photo map through Lightroom of my geotagged photos.

Using Geotagged Photos

So now that you have some geotagged photos, what can you do with them? If you use Lightroom to track and edit your photos, there is a map option where you can see all of your photos overlaid on a map, which is quite useful. You can also upload your photos to a site called Panoramio, a site run by Google meant only for geotagged images (this is where the photos overlaid onto Google Maps come from). You can keep track of the places you’ve taken photos on a map, but also what photos others have taken in that area. In a way, you’re helping to build a database of “where to get cool shots” – as I generally use the site to scout out cool places to get photos from.

“One of my photos uploaded to Panoramio, showing the location it was taken from

A map search showing all the photos taken of Tehachapi Loop in California, showing where each photographer was standing

If you want to use Panoramio for scouting locations, sometimes the built-in search is a bit clunky. The trick is to use Google’s search itself, find photos that interest you, and then go to the site to find out where the photo was taken. For example, here’s a search for good spots to get photos of the Golden Gate Bridge at sunrise:

All you have to do is go to images.google.com, in the search box type site:panoramio.com, which means that you’ll only be searching the panoramio.com site, then type your keywords, with phrases in quotes. Here’s what I searched for:
site:panoramio.com “golden gate bridge” sunrise

Though Panoramio is the best example of a site for geotagged photos, as it was designed exclusively for them, various other photo sites are compatible and will show maps for your geotagged photos. Flickr, and even RailPictures.net can show map info for any geotagged photos uploaded there.

Other GPS tools

It is also worth mentioning that railroad companies generally know where their trains are by GPS as well. A few have made that information publicly available. There are both fan-made and official live train trackers, but few beat the well-designed system yielded by an Amtrak and Google partnership. If you’re out in the field, nothing works better than being able to see where exactly the trains are on a map.

Amtrak’s live train tracker

To access the Amtrak live train tracker, go here, then click on the “Track your Train, Check Train Status” graphic.

So who out there also geotags their photos? Anyone else have a Panoramio account? Have an idea you’d love to see covered in our new series “Trains and Modern Photography”? Drop a line in the comments!

A daguerrotype considered one of the earliest known railroad photographs, circa 1850. Via the Center for Railroad Photography and Art.

I consider my upbringing to be on the very bridge of old-school photography and the “modern” technology world. I grew up shooting film, and in art school was expected to develop my own negatives and prints (admittedly, I hated it). Likewise, I remember getting my hands on my very first digital camera as a freshman in high school – it was a clunky beast, taking a 3.5″ floppy disk to save just a few photos. It wasn’t until I was in college that I got my very own digital camera (a simple point-and-shoot), and I didn’t get a digital DSLR until after I had graduated. I never fully enjoyed photography much until I had gone full digital, and since then I’ve attempted to embrace all the newest tech that I can get my hands on.

Image from a glass plate negative of Grand Central Terminal’s construction. From the Library of Congress.

Because of my love of photographic technology, and a suggestion by a reader, I’m going to be starting a new feature project on this blog – namely a column entitled “Trains and Modern Photography.” The column will feature both modern photographic technology, like the aforementioned drones, to GoPros, as well as modern techniques, like panoramic, high dynamic range, and timelapses – all from the perspective of a railfan. Though it will be of most interest to the photographer, I hope that everyone will be able to enjoy it, essentially seeing the “behind the scenes” of how great photos are made.

Modern tech in a classic setting at Grand Central Terminal

So that is about it for this introduction… look for the first “Trains and Modern Photography” post tomorrow, represented by a light green dot, which you’ll see now added to the category list on the right bar of the site. If you happen to have any suggestions or ideas of technology or topics we should cover, shoot me a message or just comment below!