Virtually all pinning diagrams for discrete transistors are a bottom view, i.e. the leads pointing at you. This is a hangover from the valve/tube days where in the pinning diagram pins were numbered clockwise from some form if index, a keyway or a missing pin.
Chips of the calibre we use here are numbered anti-clockwise looking from the top from some form of index, which amounts to the same thing really.
Of course there are the inevitable exceptions!
If your multi-meter has an hfe function confirm those diagrams actually do apply to the devices in your hand.
40nF for a solar-cell capacitance comes as no surprise and like photo-diodes is roughly proportional to the cells' active area. Hence where they have been used the pre-amp has a rising response to compensate. With the signal already at a very low level this could result in excessive HF noise. But others have used them with success.
Steve A.