TeleTales #266…TV Golf In The 1950s
TeleTales #266…TV Golf In The 1950s
With The Master’s fresh on our minds, here is a look at how CBS covered a match in Palm Springs in 1956…with very long lenses.
This is an extended Zoomar Field Lens on an RCA TK11/31. The studio version was the TK11, and the field version was the TK31; the only real difference between the two control chains is that the field version’s power supply required less voltage. The camera heads were the same.
Notice the operator is using a rod through the camera for zoom and focus. For zoom in close, you pushed the rod in, and pulled it out for a zoom out to a wide shot. For focus, you turned the rod left or right. Many of the pro cameramen carried their zoom rod with them in a hard case, because working with a bent rod (no pun intended) made the zoom and focus jumpy and ragged.
The camera is mounted on one of the coolest mobile peds ever, the Baughman Spider pedestal. -Bobby Ellerbee
Nice lens support “rope”…(snicker) or is it a “support chain?”
KRLD Super Universal Zoomar:
To execute the “tee-off” shot, which goes from wide to extreme close-up. The viewfinder brightness is cranked almost all the way black….this enables the operator to follow, and zoom into, the tiny white golf ball….
…nice ! ..is there a photo from the NASA archives of a CBS TK-30 or 31 with a similar ZOOMAR lens with lens extension and a huge counter weight system for when the camera is tilting upward to follow a rocket launch.
Those push pull rods were a P.I.A…….. there was strong merit to bringing your own push pull. They were easily damaged on setup and most were damaged on breakdown because everyone wanted to get out of there.