Off screen WWII Iconoscope bomber camera images

[Aussie Bloke]

G'day all. I have seen some really good videos on the Critical Past site showing off screen film footage of the WWII Iconoscope bomber cameras in action which look pretty clear and give a good taste of the sorts of images you'd expect to see from such cameras and Iconoscopes in general. Here are the links to the videos:

Off screen footage of the remote bomber camera footage (1944):
http://www.criticalpast.com/video/65...arget-explodes

Longer off screen footage of the remote bomber camera footage (1944):
http://www.criticalpast.com/video/65...rolled-missile

Off screen footage of remote control boat missile camera (1944):
http://www.criticalpast.com/video/65...missile-attack

Off screen footage of aircraft camera television demonstration using a bomber cam doing aerial shots of the city (1946):
http://www.criticalpast.com/video/65...takes-pictures

The footage taken looks quite clear and gives a good taste of what iconoscope pictures look like! In a sense they kind of compare to vidicon pictures particularly in the 1946 aircraft cam demonstration.

What I also find amazing about these early bomber cams is that it shows that today's wireless remote camera technology in unmanned aircraft, vehicles, boats and their hobby radio controlled versions is nothing new in terms of the basic principles of camera technology. It's still a portable powered camera with transmitter and receiver and receiving monitor, the main obvious difference with today's versions is their refined to CCD colour cameras with crisp colour pictures running off low powered batteries and the transmitter/receiver techniques far greatly refined to give clear pictures over far greater ranges. Either way it amazes me that all this was done in the earliest days of television!!!

[old_tv_nut]

Thanks very much for the links!

[NewVista]

I believe the same camera, transmitter & receiver for this WWII missile TV was on display at ETF this year. I noticed they were remarkably light (made for going on board aircraft)

[Electronic M]

You lifted them? I thought that museums frown upon touching the artifacts, and squelched that urge when I was there.

Tom C.

[old_tv_nut]

Here are some photos from the working iconoscope system shown at the Early Television Convention in 2007:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/4200284...7626532578953/

[Aussie Bloke]

Thanks for sharing those, I have seen some of those photos but in lower resolution featured on some site showcasing that very camera. Excellent to see them in higher resolution. The iconoscope certainly makes a great picture, looks comparable to a vidicon tube picture!

[Sandy G]

That stuff was prolly "Leading Edge" for the day...Nowadays an enterprising kid could likely rig up a pretty impressive video system to install in a R/C airplane...Color VCR cameras from the Eighties go begging on Ebay all the time...We truly have an embarrassment of riches today...But I'd STILL like to cabbage on one of them WW2 bombercams...(grin)