Photographing steam in the Karoo

I managed to find one of my albums. These are the 'least worst' of my efforts with my Russian Zorki 4 camera.
I can still feel the vibrations and heat as these babies thumped passed.
Also a view inside the works at Capetown

 

This was probably my fav shot - I was using Kodachrome 64 iirc with a 200mm lens, so all my stuff is pretty ropey ...
I'd already had a go at editing it Windows Gallery years ago, but this is after letting ChatGPT have a go, and it's another step up. I'll try a few more as time (and free use limit) pemits.

 

A very nice photo. Kodachrome 25 or 64 were the usual films for Karoo steam photography. But of course they did rather limit telephoto use. To me I think that lovely shot looks to be have been taken with a standard lens.

And if it is just the Potfontein side of Houtkraal it was presumably taken before the new telecoms system with vast numbers of attendant shiny poles were installed this side of the road.

Bryan

 

You might well be right ref location and lens. I also used a 35-70 zoom and in both cases sometimes I’d add a 2x converter - no wonder I was short of light on occasions. Plus std 28 & 50mm. Also two bodies, one loaded with transparency film, the other with print.

Coincidentally I’ve done some more digging in my archives and found a pic taken by my wife ….
I perhaps didn't show my company Corolla the respect it deserved. The SD reg is Swaziland where I worked ......

 

A combination of Karoo photos and me taking still images from a just digitised Hi-8 camera video tape. Those images below are in July 1991 when I was using a Sony 3 CCD pro camera.

It's a very rough draft of a page for my eventual SA steam loco memoirs book that shows how an unusual shot can be taken from 25 fps video, which gives just one chance of getting a photo of a 25NC just about to leave for Beaconsfield, while an incoming train is arrving past it! I've also got some frame grabs where it is just one frame that captures a dawn sun burst behind a 25NC as it heads a freight train across the Karoo at dawn.

The very high quality digitisations I am getting from my current provider get the images at the size used close to normal still image photo quality.

Bryan

 

I did quite a lot of my photography, and later on my filming, in winter pre-dawns in the Northern Karoo.

Fabulous low light with a variety of sky colours as they developed before sun rise, to some extent depending on where distant winds had whipped up dust. But there were of course totally clear winter mornings too. And very often sub zero temperatures before sun rise.

Below is one of the the frame grabs from a recently digitised Hi-8 video filmed on a decent Sony Pro camera.

It shows why I loved (and still do) the Karoo so very much.

Circa 20 minutes before sunrise and 25 NC 3411 is on the way up the grades to the summit at Behrshoek on train 2421, the return of train 4000 the 23.50 Beaconsfield. 14 July 1991. Not a very long train, but very heavy tank type wagons in the consist.

I was filming from near Perdevlei, by then a halt with no staff and no public road access. Just a name board and a small building, and I had used the SAR service road to get there from Behrshoek.

In the distance, circa 40 kms away, is Table Mountain! Not that at Cape Town, but its big brother the Groot Tafelberg, 1966 m high.

I doubt very much I could have got a usable image from a still camera.

Bryan

 

Lovely, just as I remember the sky when getting up for an early start!

 

Always amazed at the weather in July. Early morn (07:30) Deep-frost on windscreen, 0830 warm enough to wear shorts, 0930 sunbathing at the lineside. On one occasion our group arrived at hotel with dust stained car but overnight rain meant shining car in morning - better than a hand wash and totally free !

 

I certainly remember the sub zero morning temperatures when staying at Witput in June. They gave superb filming for such as train 2416, the 05.00 Beaconsfield - that usually left Oranjerivier as the sun rose. But as I usually experienced dry winter visits the only way to see the frost was if I accidentally used the screen washer! If it hadn't frozen over night.

I experienced rain once in what was the usual winter dry season. It cleared ovenight, leaving an hour or two of driving on iced up dirt roads!

Bryan

 

25NC 3441 blasting up the grades near Perdevlei, between De Aar and the summit at Behrshoek on 28 July. Not that long after a freezingdawn in the wonderful Karoo region.

A frame grabbed from a low res MPEG4 digitisation of a Hi-8 camera tape downloaded from the Alive Studios Cloud today - hopefully the high res digitisations will be with me fairly soon

Bryan

 

Wow! Just as well the neighbours didn’t have the washing out