Speaking Of Camera Drawings…Here’s An Interesting Twist From The UK

The gallery of “kid camera” drawings this week reminded our friend Dicky Howett in England of something he did a few years ago as a competition of sorts…a challenge to see who could name the cameras he drew here. Can you name them? Take a look at the image and see if you can. You can grade yourself by checking the answers in the text block below. Enjoy and share! -Bobby Ellerbee

NAME THAT OLD (British) CAMERA!

(1). The EMI Emitron of 1937. Iconoscope type pick-up, high velocity picture tube. Needed bags of light. Optical twin lens inverted reflex viewfinder. Lightning reflexes required to operate. Live tv upside down!

(2). Emitron CPS Mk 1. 1947/48. Orthicon type pick-up tube. First used by the BBC on murky o.b.’s. Camera unsteady on highlights.

(3). Emitron CPS Mk 2. 1951. Oddball six lens turret. ‘Export’ 625-line hopeful. Shown at the 1951` London Festival of Britain in the Telekinema. (Trivia fans: This camera can be seen to advantage in the 1956 British movie ‘Simon & Laura’)

(4). Emitron CPS Mk 3. (10764) 1956. Introduced into Lime Grove
studio D. A large camera, it produced a softish ‘photographic’ picture which didn’t transfer well to the home receiver. ‘Baked Bean Tin’ lens cover concealed titchy lenses.Tilting viewfinder. Beer handle focus knob. This camera ended its days as a BBC tv optical standards converter.

(5). EMI 203. 4 ½” image orthicon. 1959 .The ‘green box’. Mistaken often by amnesiac cameramen for the 201, which was an EMI vidicon and half the size! But does size really matter, or have you forgotten?

(6). Marconi Mk 1. The first Marconi tv camera, introduced in 1949. A 3″ image orthicon camera based entirely on RCA blueprints of the RCA TK30 ‘field’ camera. The slightly later Marconi Mk 1B was used at the Coronation in 1953.

(7). Marconi Mk III 1955. Successful heavyweight 4 ½” image orthicon camera with tilting viewfinder and omnipresent beer-handle focus. Camera was the mainstay of 1950s monochrome British TV .

(8). Marconi Mk IV1959. World-spanning 4 ½” image orthicon camera. Over 900 channels sold world-wide, including 44 in one chunk to CBS in New York and Hollywood.

(9). Pye Photicon. 1949. Lunky old machine with a laboriously slow motorised 4-lens turret. Camera boasted a high-velocity miniature super iconoscope. Later versions, called ‘Pesticons’ used pea lamps in the tube to counteract bouncing electron ‘shading’. Mostly successful.

(10). Pye Mk 3. 1951. Well-regarded compact (but not lightweight) 3″ image orthicon camera. A lot of remote controls taking this camera way ahead of its time. Noisy electrical turret. Big focus wheels on both sides. Frequent breakdown of servo motors.

Further invaluable information:

Only one 1937 EMI standard Emitron camera full channel exists. There is a further complete head and a few bits and pieces. These priceless items reside at the BBC and the National Media Museum. One 1949 EMI CPS Emitron Mk 1 exists down at the EMI Labs. Nothing seems to remain of the ill-fated 1951 Emitron CPS Mk 2 six-lens turret jobby. A couple of 1956 EMI CPS Emitron Mk 3’s remain. The author himself has four green EMI 203’s and at least three others are alive and well. Only one 1949 Marconi Mk 1 exists, cared for by an ex-BBC engineer. Three other later Mk 1B versions exist to delight us all. Ten or so Marconi Mk III’s are active, one in full working order. At least five Marconi Mk IV’s are present and correct. Two are running well. Alas, the poor old 1949 Pye Photicon Mk 1 is extinct. Only one small lens survives and a few working (!) pickup tubes. Nothing remains also of the Pesticon Mk 2 variants. Happily, the modest Pye Mk 3 is extant and there are at least six examples to amuse and amaze us.

Dicky Howett (revised 2014)

By the way, Dicky has the largest collection of cameras in the UK. He also owns the top equipment prop house in Europe with hundreds of antique cameras and TV gear. Here’s a link to his site.
www.golden-agetv.co.uk

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