Hellraised! - GE Tube Camera test

This is a video of a friend of mine mixing music.
The music that he is playing is NOT actually a remix of Hellraiser, I simply put the music track on to do this small test with the video camera.

The video camera is a 1979 General Electric color Video Camera. It uses vacuum tubes to interpolate an image.

I've used many camcorders and cameras in my time but I must say that the 1979 GE tube camera is THE BEST camera that I have EVER used! It has complete manual control; meaning my focus, zoom, color balance and iris controls are all manually set and the image pick up tube on his video camera REALLY pulls out some color!

IT is the best analogue camera I have ever used and it even trumps most digital cameras as well!


Enjoy

Category:

Film & Animation

Tags:

• tube
• camera
• saticon
• plumbicon
• vidicon
• trinicon
• havicon
• vacuum
• old
• vintage
• analogue
• analog
• digial
• film
• technicolor
• CCD
• CMOS

[RetroToledo]

@RET80 I just checked a picture of the camera and it nearly looks just like the same camera my mom bought from JCPenny that had their name on it (which she used about 29 years ago). I recall using the camera back in the 90's but the tube was starting to go out at the edges of the picture. Not sure if I can get it replace internally but it would be neat to do so!

[wado1942]

@prammaven

The reason for the shallower depth of field is older cameras tend to have larger image sensors. 35mm film, LOTS OF CONTROL, standard 2/3" tubes and CCDs have a lot less. The common 1/6" CMOS and CCDs we see now, there's pretty much no such thing as being out of focus, just varied degrees of softness.

[pvx]

@RET80 I also have an old Sears-branded color tube camera from '81 as well (I'm guessing it's made by Hitachi or some other OEM), I've had to unfortunately cut off the 14-pin "K Connector" plug (standard on cameras used with Betamax-format portable decks), and terminate the wires to standard RCA jacks for the video & audio out, and to a coaxial power connenctor for the power, since I can't seem to find any female K connectors anywhere. I'll post up video of that camera when I get it converted..

[pvx]

@RET80 Thanks for the info! I'm assuming it's the camera's long storage that kept it in the great shape it's in, as camera tubes definitely do age and lose their performance over long periods of constant use.

Yes, I'll definitely post some footage from my old Panasonic when I get the chance, it tends to have a green-to-brown tinge to the video (I'm guessing due to the vidicon getting weak after being used so much, it was originally a studio camera for a state university).

[RET80]

@pvx

It's a 1CVC2030E camera from GE.

It was originally owned by an old lady who kept it in storage for MANY years.

I'd love to see some footage from your camera if you haven't already posted it yet!

[troysvisualarts]

Wow, the colours look really good coming from a 1979 single tube colour camera, guess it was as well aligned as it were when originally bought! The colours look comparable to that of a CCD digital handycam, the only giveaway this is a tube camera from what I see is the temporary burn in effect when kept pointed at one thing for a period of time.

[bearchay889]

Looks awesome!

[RET80]

I bet it does!

I was using this camera and it had a REALLY shallow depth of field. I mainly notice it with older cameras. Modern cameras, not so much. It could be because of the zoom. Most camcorders have 50x zoom give or take. Older video cameras have anywhere from 5x-15x zoom. I'm not sure though. This camera most certainly had a narrow DOF.