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.
Wow cool, gotta love that Kodak Brownie 8mm movie camera style viewfinder used too 🙂
Although it’s not him, this reminds me of another NBC cameraman…John Pinto. Maybe it’s the hair doo?
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.