May 8, 1945, Victory In Europe Day

May 8, 1945, Victory In Europe

To celebrate the defeat of Germany, and it’s Axis ally Italy, WNBT broadcast hours of live news coverage and celebrations on the end of World War II in Europe with remotes from around New York City. Here, we see an RCA Orthicon camera atop the marquee of the Astor Hotel in panning the happy crowd below.

Although a step up from the Iconoscope cameras, the first Orthicon cameras still had the ground glass, optical viewfinders and the right hand pan handle was the focus demand, which would carry over into the TK40s and 41s. The focus demand on the body of the camera’s right side did not come along until the Image Orthicon RCA TK30 and TK10 which had a four lens turret and five inch electronic viewfinders. Interestingly, some of the fist TK40 prototypes had the side mounted focus control, but TK40 operators liked the dual handles and right grip focus demand better with a camera that size.

Many of our international friends still have their cameras set up with the focus demand on the right and zoom on the left. In the US, our cameras are mostly set up with zoom demand on the right and focus on the left. This shift came about with the introduction of the cable drive Varatol zoom lenses from Rank Taylor Hobson. With the back focus correctly set, cameramen could get more dynamics with the zoom demand and that was more easily done with the right hand with minimal help from the cable driven focus demand, so that assignment went to the left hand.

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