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Brian’s Field-Finder Cab-View of a Soviet Electric.

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To see the full image click on Tracking the Light.

In July 2002, I spent a week in Estonia photographing railway operations.

It was organized for me take a cab-ride on an empty oil-train in a recently imported former Union Pacific General Electric C36-7 diesel.

I wrote about this adventure in my recently published book The World’s Most Exotic Railway Journeys produced in the UK by John Beaufoy Publishing Limited. (Available on Amazon).

I was working with three cameras. Previously I’ve published color views exposed with my Contax G2 rangefinder and Nikon N90S single-lens reflex, however until today most of my  black & white photos remained unpublished and unseen.

I made  my black & white photos using  a Rollei Model T twin-lens reflex (120 size film camera). So, rolling along at about 30 mph east of Tallinn, I made this view of a Riga-built Tallinn-area electric suburban train.

Exposed with a Rolleiflex Model T twin-lens reflex fitted with a 75mm Zeiss Tessar. Kodak Tri-X processed in Ilford ID-11 1:1 with water. Scanned at 3200 dpi with a Epson V600 flatbed scanner. Scaled for internet presentation using Lightroom; however there was no post-processing manipulation to density, contrast or sharpness.
Exposed with a Rolleiflex Model T twin-lens reflex fitted with a 75mm Zeiss Tessar. Kodak Tri-X processed in Ilford ID-11 1:1 with water. Scanned at 3200 dpi with a Epson V600 flatbed scanner. Scaled for internet presentation using Lightroom; however there was no post-processing manipulation to density, contrast or sharpness.

Significantly,I made this image by using the Rollei’s field-finder— which is nothing more than a pair of open squares that allow you to frame up a photo while holding the camera at eye-level.

Normally, I’d focus using the camera’s built in magnifying glass on the waist level viewer (which supplies a view through the top lens arrangement that projects onto a Fresnel screen. The down side of this viewing mechanism is that you must look down into the camera and the image is in reverse.

So exposing photos from a moving locomotive cab using the waist-finder is not only impractical, but can lend to sea-sickness.

Another advantage of the field-finder is that you are actually looking at your subject without any distortion caused by a lens. In today’s photography it rare that you actually see your subject at the time the shutter is released. You’d be amazed how this direct viewing can improve composition.

Also, the Rollei’s mechanical shutter release is virtually instantaneous.

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Soviet Flashback

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Yesterday I posted a few photos of the Helsinki-Moscow sleeper Leo Tolstoi, which reminded me of some photos I made on a visit to Tallinn, Estonia back in 2002.

At the time, second-hand General Electric C30-7As and C36-7s were being delivered from the USA to supplant Soviet Era M62 diesels.

I thought the old Soviet machines were pretty cool.

Exposed on Fujichrome slide film using a Contax G2 rangefinder.

Builders plate on a M62 diesel.
Builders plate on a M62 diesel.
Why do I keep thinking Timken's Four Aces? ERV's Soviet-era M62 1111 poses for a portrait at Tallinn, Estonia in July 2002.
Why do I keep thinking Timken’s Four Aces? EVR’s Soviet-era M62 1111 poses for a portrait at Tallinn, Estonia in July 2002.

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