1956, RCA/NBC Portable Camera Research & Development #3
On January 9, 2014
- TV History
1956, RCA/NBC Portable Camera Research & Development #3
Now THIS is RARE! These photos are also from the 1956 Republican Convention in San Francisco and show an NBC cameraman using a Philco hand held Vidicon camera. Why would RCA/NBC use a competitor’s camera? Because the half inch Vidicon tube in it is made by RCA. A 3-inch diameter monitor using an RCA 3RP4 CRT tube was provided for the operator and this is also a newly developed tube. At the time, Dage also made a hand held Vidicon, but neither Philco or Dage had a wireless model like RCA’s as both of their cameras were cabled.
Back in high school we had a small Dage camera.. no viewfinder (it was industrial equipment). I played around mounting a Pan Cinor 16mm zoom lens on it because it had an optical viewfinder. Pretty cool, but I don’t think I ever found a project to use it on.
Although it’s not him, this reminds me of another NBC cameraman…John Pinto. Maybe it’s the hair doo?
Wow cool, gotta love that Kodak Brownie 8mm movie camera style viewfinder used too 🙂