 1 |
 2 |
 3
Streetcars on Market Street. On the left is the
Philadelphia Suburban "Red Arrow". |
 4 |
 5 |
 6
"Shirley Temple" trolley near Fisherman's Wharf. The Los Angeles Railway
Company used narrow-gauge trolley cars painted with this scheme from 1937 to
1963. Shirley Temple advertised for the line when it was introduced. |
 7 |
 8
Ferry Building with Peter Witt streetcar. |
 9
The Bumble Bee street car in front of Ferry Tower Build. The Cincinnati
Street Railway Co. sold its last street cars to Toronto before shutting down
in 1951. Cars painted like the one shown here used two overhead electric
lines (positive and negative) instead of relying on the track and one
overhead line. Behind it is the Baltimore Canary. |
 10
Cable Car Barn & Powerhouse
1201 Mason Street San Francisco, CA 94108 (corner of Mason and Washington
Sts.) |
 11
Vintage street cars from Milan, running along the Embarcadero. This design
of street car came from Cleveland transit leader Peter Witt. These two were
built in Milan, where others of this vintage still run in regular service.
|  12
Cable car on California Street, San Francisco |
 13 |
 14 |
 15
Powell Street at Market. |
 16
Car No. 130, delivered to Muni in 1914 by the Jewett Car Company of Ohio,
was the last "Iron Monster" to leave regular service in 1958. |
 17
"Desire", no. 952, from New Orleans,built in 1923-24, built by the Perley
Thomas Company. |
 18
Melbourne & Metropolitan Tramways Board Trolley, #496, built by the Moore
firm in 1929. The car contains closed sections at each end, with a lowered
section for boarding in the middle where, in the old days, one could smoke. |
 19
No. 1015, Illinois Terminal Railway scheme, and no. 1062, Louisville Railway
Company, on the Embarcadero. |
 20
Los Angeles Red Line. None of the original LA Red Line cars exist today. San
Francisco's Muni #1061 is painted in tribute to the Pacific Electric "Big
Red Car". |
 21
California Street Cable Car. |
 22
Powell Street turntable |
 23 |
 24 |
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Technical
Details
These pictures were taken with Canon 10D, 20D and 5D digital cameras in 2004
- 2006. Photos 1, 2, 14, 21, and 23 used artificial lighting. The artificial
lighting in all cases was old-fashioned, single-use flashbulbs. For photo
1, shot with a Canon 17-40 mm zoom at 40 mm (4 seconds at f/11), the
flasher stood off-image at camera-right and waited for the second Muni car
to approach, then signaled the photographer to open the shutter, and then
manually fired a No. 2A bulb in Graflex bulb flash with a 7-inch reflector
at the side of the stationary rail car. The internal lights of the moving
car produced the motion streaks. The horse and buggy was a gift of the gods
of photography.
Photo 2 is a 30 second
exposure at f/22 with a Canon 300 mm f/4 IS lens. We manually fired
several big bulbs at the near end of the cable car from camera left,
near the cable car. The camera was several hundred feet from the
flasher, so we used cell phones to coordinate shutter-open and
flash. Note the two automobiles coming down steep California Street;
their headlights are brighter at the points where they pass level
intersections. The most difficult part of this shot was trying to
convince the vagrants that it was only funny the first dozen or so
times that they jumped in front of the camera while the shutter was
open. Flashbulbs are expensive these days.
Photo 23 combines "natural"
street light (the big yellow blur) with electronic on-camera flash
triggering two M3 flashbulbs on light stands to superimpose the sharp image
of the trolley. For more on bulb technique, see our topic on using
flashbulbs with digital photography.
Most of the wide angle shots
used the Canon 17-40 mm zoom lens. Photos 19 and 20 used the 28-135 mm IS
zoom. The shot a car in motion on the turntable used the 17-40 at 24 mm,
f/8, and 2.5 seconds. |
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