Alice Cooper shot on an RCA TK-42 camera

[Dave A]

Having spent my formative television years behind a TK-42 (1969 to 1973) I can say with authority and hindsight that it was the worst insult to color television ever.

Remember that it had 4 tubes. One 4" IO and three 1" vidicons for the color smear. That means that the light was divided by 4 for each tube...25% each via the optics. Even the venerable TK-40 and 41 had three tubes to share the light. 300 footcandles on the set was our standard.

The resulting picture was quite sharp with the big IO as luminance but the RGB from the vidicons was as dull as it could be. If you knew what to look for, you could see some halo, but it was the least of the problems. Registering the camera on a chart was fun. Try to find the G signal mush over the very sharp IO.

It came with an "orbiter" button on the back which would electronically rotate the image field slightly to prevent a tube burn if pointed at a bright light for a length of time. Earlier B&W cameras had the same, but were mechanical. If you burned a tube, you would point the camera at a white card and open the iris and let it cook for a half hour or so to equally burn out the spot. This did not help tube life.

The 42 had the zoom/focus control directly built in to the back of the camera as huge hand controls that would be better suited to closing the watertight doors on a submarine. There was no chance of a good zoom because the "feel" for the controls was too close to the center of gravity. Any move you made that close is like shooting skeet with a shotgun with no stock.

The later TK-43 corrected this with outboard controls on panhandles. But not enough to get NBC to buy them. They skipped them and held on to the TK-41's until 1971 or so when the TK-44 arrived. My station in Rockford, IL held on to the 42's until 1977 when new owners bought TK-47's.

I might have some 3/4" footage from this camera I can post as soon as I find it, transfer it to the computer and catch a screen shot. I have some VHS also, but that is not a good reproduction of the color due to VHS limitations.

Scarred for life by this camera,

Dave A