RCA TK10 “Taking Lens”

Take Your Best Shot

In this photo, the RCA TK10 has a wide angle opening shot of the man’s desk top and will probably tilt up to show his face. The “taking lens” is the lens in front of the IO tube which on the TK10 and TK30 was the top center position. In this photo, the camera is shooting with a 50mm lens. The middle right lens is a 90mm, at the bottom an 8 1/2 inch, and middle left is the 135mm. The longest lens must always be mounted 180 degrees away from the shortest lens (on the other side of the center nut). If not, the shorter lens will “see” the longer lens.

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8 Comments

  1. Paul Duca January 14, 2014

    Are they looking at the man’s crotch?

  2. Robert Franklin January 13, 2014

    Steve..The actual opening on the image orthicon is about 2 inches…but the target face which is the next layer down is 1 inch in diameter. I remember when we used TK10s in the RCA studio school we were told that we should not tilt down too far because the target face material might come off its base inside the tube.

  3. Steven Bradford January 13, 2014

    Does anyone know what the size of the image on the IO tube was on these camera? I’m trying to get a feel for it in relation to the current fad for large sensors, which to me is a harkening back to the days before the small 2/3rds inch chip sensor took over studio cameras. (In the tube world, that size had been just for ENG cameras.

  4. Gary Donahue January 13, 2014

    We had turret lenses on our cameras at Columbia College in Los Angeles, when I attended there in 1969-1970. I don’t remember what model the cameras were, but they were B&W. I think they were donated to the college by KCOP if I remember correctly.

  5. Fred Schultze January 13, 2014

    Believe you mean mounted 180 degrees away.

  6. Gary Lewi January 13, 2014

    these photos and comments should be part of a broadcast curriculum

  7. Eyes Of A Generation.com January 13, 2014

    This photo is from a 1949 presentation of ‘The Glass Key’

  8. Albert J. McGilvray January 13, 2014

    Looks like Edward R. Murrow.