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I believe the “Kodak SLR” reference is erroneous and is a conflation of the film’s manufacturer with that of the camera. Kodak did market a range of SLR’s from 1959 onwards, but these were the West German Nagel-manufactured “Retina Reflex” series and have a very different appearance to the camera in the images on the cumberland spaceman site, with a selenium meter cell on the right front of the camera and a plain top cover with bottom lever film advance, not knobs on top. (For more detail see; http://camerapedia.wikia.com/wiki/Kodak_Retina_Reflex)

One of the features of the Contax S/D/ Pentacon F is that it has a primitive plain-glass view screen (Steven’s Screen) for focussing, which makes the finder image quite dim and only really sharp in the centre.

The viewfinder image is quite restricted and shows approximately 70% of the full 24×36 mm frame of the 135 film format. Any modern SLR would have a brighter viewfinder covering at least 92% of the frame.

Therefore an object at the very edge of the frame may not be seen before taking the picture.

Another limitation is that the Contax/Pentacon F also does not have an “instant return mirror”, so once the photographer presses the shutter release the viewfinder goes black and stays that way until the camera is re-wound for the next shot.

The lens appears to be a Zeiss Jena 58mm Biotar with a maximum aperture of f/2.0. These were (are) superb professional quality coated lenses of a double-Gauss design and easily match a modern DSLR lens for image quality. 2/58mm Zeiss Biotar’s are highly sought-after today and can fetch hundreds of pounds in good condition for use on DSLR’s. With such a top-quality coated optic I really doubt that the “spaceman” image is a result of internal reflections or an optical flaw, particularly as the rest of the images on the roll came out properly exposed and without artifacts.

So in summation the relevant technical issues are:

1) the view finder image is quite dim
2) the viewfinder only shows 70% of the frame
3) once the shutter is fired, the viewfinder goes black
4) lens used was of professional quality

In conclusion, if an object or person appeared at the edge of the frame immediately before the shutter was fired or during the taking of the image, the photographer may not have known about it. 

Gordon Hudson is a photographic expert who has written about the Spaceman photo on his blog recently.
Jim Templeton was the original photographer and lives about 5 miles away from the Marsh, in the west of Carlisle.
I guess the explanation would generally be its the nearest route to the sea from Carlisle and an area of outstanding natural beauty.
Jim is/was a well renowned photographer, so was probably always out taking photographs in the Solway area.
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