Thank you all for your thoughts, I don't know which is correct though, shutter bounce seems plausible, perhaps I need to just be further away, many large format lenses don't have shutters that go higher than 1/250th sec, more so with the longer lenses in larger shutters.
Hopefully this diagram explains what I was saying a little clearer.
http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-eqVlsem_J...APk/No6p-AIosjQ/s1600/trainshutterdiagram.jpg
I'm sure they were posed with the trains travelling slow to promote the railways and/or the photographic technology of the time. Not sure there was such a thing as train spotters back then. Early steam trains take a good while to gain any significant speed anyway?
Woah there, don't tar me with that brush.
This is probably the fastest bit of track on the branch line, up to the area I am at and beyond slightly is a good straight which starts about 7 minutes out of Totnes Station.
the rest of the train having less exposure difference with the image already latent on film only recorded a blur, limited to the central portion affected by the "bounce".
The leaf shutter, while closing, "bounced" a little and then closed for good. The numbers being so white they managed to make a "ghost image" (grey, right) during the small time of the bounce, the rest of the train having less exposure difference with the image already latent on film only recorded a blur, limited to the central portion affected by the "bounce".
I don't agree with any explanation concerning movement blur. We would see blurred numbers. We see two sets of numbers. Notice the 0 and the 5. We distincly see a blacker part between the two 0s and the two 5s. If the effect was due to motion, we would see a continuous blurred number not two numbers with edges and black between them.
To say it in perhaps clearer terms, if this was motion blur we would see some sort of a line connecting the upper-left corner of the first (leftmost) 5 with the upper left corner of the second (rightmost) 5.
The "concave belly" of the second 5 should not so clearly show a dark edge just near the "convex belly" of the first 5.
A very daring hypothesis: the frame is cropped. The white number is actually near the centre of the negative. The leaf shutter, while closing, "bounced" a little and then closed for good. The numbers being so white they managed to make a "ghost image" (grey, right) during the small time of the bounce, the rest of the train having less exposure difference with the image already latent on film only recorded a blur, limited to the central portion affected by the "bounce".
I think some slight bouncing of the train on the tracks was amplified by the fact that the shutter was too slow for the speed this section was travelling through the frame.
It's a fine shot never the less.
The whole front of the engine appears blurred but the tracks seem perfectly in focus.
It can only be motion blur compounded by closeness to the front of the train and a relatively slow (1/250th) shutter speed. I'll bet you would see much better at 1/500th sec.
Question: are/were there faster shutter speeds available for large format? I'm curious as to how the train photogs of the 30s and 40s accomplished such striking photos of steam trains at speed. Maybe they aren't actually as sharp as they appear at first glance. Guess I never really thought of it...
The train is moving to the right and down with respect to the frame. The blur in the front parts of the locomotive show that. However, the ghost image of the train number seem to move upward and to the right.
I would agree that, as the train was moving closer to the camera, it would appear slightly larger and, consequently, might seem to move upward but it looks like the ghost number are smaller, not larger. Further, nothing else in the picture seems to do the same.
What puzzles me is why this ghost image is so evident on the numbers and appears as normal motion blur on the rest of the picture.
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