Eastern Railroad Discussion > SD80's & I Hate My Camera

Q415 just went through Weverton, MD westbound towards Cumberland with SD80 808 in the lead. As there was an eastbounder stopped there, I thought I\'d grab a "meet" between the SD60 on the stopped train and 808. See 415 coming with five units in the consist, walk across the tracks at the crossing in somewhat of a hurry, aim the camera, and discover that the %^&*#%& camera has gone in to sleep mode. What made it worse was that there was ANOTHER SD80 at the back end of the consist. Somedays you just can\'t win...anybody know which 80 was at the back end?

dharris

That why I only use a camera that battery controls only the light meter
Steve

K-1000?

Nikon 885 digital.

Mamiya 645\'s, a C220, and a C330 along with a handheld lightmeter, lots of lenses, and plenty of color slide and black and white film. Good old fashioned manual cameras that take a lickin\' and keep on clickin\', with an occasional overhaul to keep them healthy. To heck with all of this digital mumbo, jumbo.

You will have more chances to shoot SD80MACs, in Conrail paint even, if you just keep going out -- I\'ll bet the house on that -- so don\'t be too hard on yourself. And once you get them, today\'s experience will be forgotten.

Among the many shots I have screwed up because I forgot to turn on the camera, failed to load the film properly, forgot to rewind the film after completing a roll (and destroyed images by opening the camera back), or whatever other reason, there have been only four that I can specifically remember, and of those only two I really regret.

1) 1991 -- The last Amtrak departure from Grand Central Terminal. I set up a tripod shot with bulbs of the train at the platform, and finished off a roll. Two days later, I went to load a new roll into the camera and discovered, to my horror, that the old one was still in there, unrewound. At least I saw it quickly enough, and slammed the camera-back shut quickly enough, that the other Amtrak pictures I had taken earlier in the day survived.

2) 1995 -- A roll of film that I loaded didn\'t take on the spool, but I didn\'t notice till I got to exposure "39". The victims: one of my best-ever shots of Detroit Edison U30Cs, Santa Fe SF30C 9500 leading a Conrail BUEL, and the final shot, of a CP detour running through Toledo with an SD40-2 and four C424\'s. If I could get one of those images back, it would be the DE shot.

3) 1998 -- A dark, gloomy autumn day in New England has suddenly become promising: there\'s a big break in the clouds over West Warren, Mass., and the fall foliage is in full flame. I\'m waiting for a westbound Conrail train that I know has left Worcester, but I don\'t know how close it is. As a big cloud passes over the sun, I drift away from my vantage point to shoot a scenic of the pretty leaves. Can you guess what happened? Blue train, black sky, brilliant leaves, and I\'m out of position. My wife says she\'s never seen me so angry.

4) 2000 -- Shooting scenics at Port Cartier, Quebec, it suddenly dawns on me that, once again, the spool isn\'t turning when I advance the film. Fortunately, I lose only one humdrum shot I had taken earlier in the afternoon of Cartier Alcos -- the scenics can be redone after reloading properly. I only mention this because I do remember it. It was the last time I misloaded film.

[Oh, and another thing: So what if there was another SD80MAC deep in the consist? Trailing-units rarely matter, especially when they\'re No. 6. Nobody really wants to see a coupled-up roster shot of ANYTHING, unless it\'s a one-of-a-kind -- and maybe not even then. Even if it\'s the only RSD17 ever built, if its nose is coupled, chances are somebody else has a better picture of it. So don\'t worry about that, either.]

toledopatch wrote:

> Nobody really wants to see a coupled-up
> roster shot of ANYTHING, unless it\'s a one-of-a-kind -- and
> maybe not even then.

I hear that. I\'ve had to do it with 0804, but that\'s just how it goes sometimes. I have seen the thing parked, but we won\'t go there.

Anyhow, I almost got screwed on the shot of the MAC\'s crossing the Cheat River on the Mountain Sub. We hiked down to shoot it, \'click\', and no batteries (must have been dead from the previous 25 shots!). Fortunately they were stopped, but it still involved doubling that hike which wasn\'t for the weary. By the time I got back and got the shot of them, I could have just fallen in the cool Cheat River and not cared. Must\'ve taken the whole ride home to dry out anyway...


CR

I got a nice shot of a SD70AC in Conrail paint with original number even, unfortunalely in was covered in oil and it wasn\'t pretty to look at. Its posted in the Library.