Television’s First Electronic Zoom Lens…The RCA Electra Zoom
Television’s First Electronic Zoom Lens…The RCA Electra Zoom
As we saw in the article just before this, Zoomar came to television in the middle of 1949 and was the first zoom for TV use. The first use of the RCA Electra Zoom lens was at NBC New York, and I think arrived a month or so prior to the debut of the ‘Today’ show in January of 1952 for cameramen to get the feel of it’s operation. We see it in use there on the debut broadcast.
Included here is the RCA catalog listing and, an original prototype model built by it’s creator, Joseph Walker, who was a pioneer of zoom and fixed lenses at Paramount Pictures. Some of the earliest uses of a zoom lens in motion pictures are due to Walker’s work in the 1930s. In 1950, he added an electric motor to one of his earlier models for smoother action. In late 1951, RCA and Zeiss bought the invention and took over the manufacturing and sales. Enjoy and share! -Bobby Ellerbee
Ah, “Dave Garraway, there!”
Thank you for uploading these, Bobby. They really made the “golden age” efficient to program. They had one of these in master control at the Merchandise Mart in Chicago. And it shot into the announcers’ studio. And they did everything under the sun with that lens from Uncle Johnny Coons to Everett Mitchell and his early morning farm panel.
…thanks for posting Bobby E. ! ..if you watch any b-roll film footage when JFK made his Cuban Missile Crisis announcement, you will see a plain TK-30, with round side hole vents, set on JFK as the main camera ..could it be that WTOD provided pool coverage for this event ? ..just a wild guess.
The Zoomar was built by Hollywood Radio Optics…we had one on the TK10 in the RCA TV Studio School…1973.
And merely 12 pounds!