Are vintage TV /video cameras a thing of interest?

[Pio1980]

Thinking primarily image tubes and early generation CCD cams rather than camcorders. Iconoscope/Emiscope/ Farnsworth Image Dissector to Plumicon/Newvicon /RCA CKC 020, ect.

[old_tv_nut]

Always interested to learn more about these things.

[Pio1980]

Originally Posted by old_tv_nut

Always interested to learn more about these things.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Video_camera_tube

[Pio1980]

Being a newbie posting here, pardon any presumptions in advance. I can assume there are many with extensive background in TV broadcasting and the cameras and tech.
The vidicon/ variant home and industrial cameras are still plentiful and affordable for collectors and experimentation, there's a certain appeal for this analogue pickup tube tech as attainable and less cumbersome than pro/broadcast studio cams

[Dave A]

Welcome and go for it Pio. I have a lot of fun with vintage home cameras and they don't take up a lot of space. I have a color RCA CC002 from about 1978 in great working order with the striped vidicon tube. I figured out how to set it up on a broadcast grey scale chart and how to adjust the tube back focus for different lenses. The RCA CKC021 was still a tube pickup with the bonus of a color beam index viewfinder...not Indextron but the same by Hitachi. And the CC030 is the same but now a chip imager. The viewfinders have not aged well however. They work but the color is not great. Somewhere is a RCA BW camera from the CC002 era. A terrible camera. And I have two early Sony HVC-2200 Trinicon color cameras and another unknown model with Japanese markings on the controls. All work. The trick to them is to find the now pricey Sony CMA-1010A adaptor to convert the Sony 14 pin format to the RCA 10 pin format to use with the very common RCA DC adaptors with video and audio out. A caution to look for is scale/mold growing on the UV filter behind the lens and in front of the tube, if the lens can be removed (C-mount). No way to fix the coating. Ask the seller to send a photo of the filter. It should be light blue and clear. There were some early VHS (not portables) decks that had the 10 pin connector built in for home recording.

[Dave A]

Wayne, it took me a while to figure out what the focus control on the back of my CC002 was for and it was not for electronic focus. It is basically a beam stripe purity adjustment like a CRT red purity adjustment. Real focus is more a mechanical tube adjustment. It comes from the factory with a center detent for red purity and there are likely finer adjustments inside but that is for others. I used a red notebook binder to check. From there I found the R/B white and black balance on the right side of the camera. Don't touch any green adjustment. On a grey scale chart, it dialed in very close under an old 8mm camera light bar on my Tek analog scope.

[DVtyro]

I not going to add anything technical to the discussion, but this is an HD video shot with tube cameras, and light trails in HD look a bit weird.

[Pio1980]

Thnx for replies so far, the rescue of a Panasonic PK-801 Omnivision shoulder cam from my storm damaged storage and a couple slightly newer palm cams got me thinking. 40 year old tech doesn't seem that long ago, but in 1960, 40 yrs would have been 1920 for perspective. Crystal radios and one tube regenerative receivers to color TV.

[DVtyro]

You are kidding. 40 years ago it was all different. Digital just started and was hugely expensive, some attempts of analog HD, tube cameras, suitcase-sized portable VTRs, film is still used for news.

[old_tv_nut]

A really eclectic collection of comments/topics here!

There are a lot of interesting non-ideal effects in single-tube striped faceplate cameras.
For one thing, since the vidicon has a non-linear response (partial gamma correction built in), it results in blues and reds getting more saturated than greens. Some I have seen turn blue-green objects blue. Testing with a modern Chroma duMonde chart would show huge hue and saturation distortions compared to a 3-tube Plumbicon camera.

The other thing about stripe tubes, of course, is the need for accurate electrical focus to recover the blue and red signals. This means that poor focus not only reduces color saturation, but also shifts white balance toward green, since the green comes from the average of the various stripes and its amplitude is not affected by focus.

The other thing that is striking about tube cameras is the amount of lag compared to a solid state pickup. Studio cameras used faceplate lighting to raise the black level optically and reduce lag since the charge pattern did not have to decay fully. The deliberate fog was carefully removed by lowering the black level in the video amps. This was too expensive and finicky for home cameras.

[Pio1980]

Thnx again for followups on the got-chas of acquisition and the technical aspects and compromises of the consumer single tube approach. I could see an analogy between home 8mm film and pro cameras up to 70mm. Making the tech available and affordable to the masses seemed miraculous, and, I suppose it was, but the constraints dictated results.
The solid state imaging cams available to the consumer class users are pretty impressive, compared to what was once the best. Tho I was sceptical of HDTV taking over, the visual standards and results never fail to astonish me, compared to the best of the analogue days.

[ChrisW6ATV]

I still have several tube-pickup color cameras that I mostly bought in the early and mid 1990s for use on ATV (Amateur Television, TV over ham radio). Usually I looked for the higher-end ones with character generators and similar features in them. The ATV transmitters of that era had the ten-pin connector on their front panel, and I remember buying a few of those connectors at a local parts store as well for my own add-on projects.

One day when I have more time, I will enjoy playing with that equipment again. I do remember that one Panasonic camera (PK-958 or similar model number) has a purity problem. I did pick up a service manual for that camera and maybe one other Panasonic. Fun stuff!

[Tube TV]

I've started back collecting early home video cameras in the 6 or so months. I missed the look of Newvicon and Vidicon tube cameras. I recently finished working on a Panasonic Omnimovie PV-200D and got all the colors dialed back in and it's working great now and made up a NIMH battery pack to to replace the lead acid battery and am getting 3 hours of recording time with it on a charge.

I also picked up a Panasonic WV-460 black and white Vidicon camera. This is the same model as the RCA BW-001. It still has the original box and accessories and manual. Very nice black and while picture for it's age. It's getting up to 350 vertical TVL resolution.

[Dave A]

I remember working a 1984 Bruce Springsteen concert in Phila that used the RCA CC-002 camera in the front of the stage to shoot the show above.

[Tube TV]

Originally Posted by Dave A

I remember working a 1984 Bruce Springsteen concert in Phila that used the RCA CC-002 camera in the front of the stage to shoot the show above.

Lol. That's a pretty early home grade color camera. I guess it would do alright if there was enough light, otherwise it pretty muddy.
My first camera was a Panasonic PK-751 and if there wasn't about 200 lux it was pretty dark.

I'd like to add a RCA to my collection but I'm waiting for a deal on ebay. Every seller seems to be over $100 for it and the CC-001. I forget what model number the Panasonic was called but have seen them too.