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Well, for me i am too young to ever have been in the tv studios when anything but 3ccd cameras were in use..
But the camera i hold close to my heart is the TK-45's - which were used at a regional television station here in australia which i grew up watching.
The cameras had the stations logo on the side, and sort of became the unofficial symbol of the station and era, they were always having them in shot and i must have been about 8 when i decided i wanted to get to that station when i grew up and all i wanted to be was a cameraman operating those. I drew heaps of drawings of what i thought the studios looked like with the sets and cameras etc and used to send them in to tv programs all over the country asking them "is this how the studio layout looks in real life"? - even though i only guessed, most of the time the response was that i was very accurate indeed.
By the time i got to the studios in the mid 90's, like all regionals it had just become a relay station by then, with very little production. The TK45's had long gone, and replaced with BVP-370's 3ccd cameras..which werent quite the same and seemed like a poorer baby camera on budget vintent peds to me.
I spent years trying to find one of the TK45 cameras, but everywhere had disposed of them long ago and my heart ached at the storys of them being put into the dumpster on retirement day, in one instance...many stacked upon each other...line sardines in a can.
I now have two in the collection which like all the cameras i own, I treasure greatly - they all have their own history and story to tell.
The Tk45's i have should be working but i havent a manual for set up, and i beleieve there is a set procedure to follow or you wont get very good results. Some years ago, i powered up one..which worked but i couldnt seem to derive an actual image from (just blank noisy screen).
Which cameras are better than others, i dont know since i have never had the chance to fiddle with them while operating. But from looking at a lot of archival material from master sources i have a fair idea of the results they could produce, and have come to the conclusion that generally it came down to the time and skill of the maintenance/engineering people, lightning etc
I have seen some woeful pictures out of all models of cameras, yet some of the best pictures from a same model at a different station.
the marconi MK8's on some programs looked wonderful, yet on other programs "sons and daughters", etc, they lagged a lot, looked noisy, over the top pink comet tails etc...
at some regionals the tk45's looked horrendous, washed out, color fringing, poor registration, color casts etc....yet at others...particularly ATV10 in melbourne, the images were pin sharp, vivid and wonderful. They were used there up until around 1995 !
I'd so much love to see an orthicon camera working and learn its strengths and weakness's and alike, but its so hard to find technical people with the knowledge of how to repair, troubleshoot these things...for me i have very basic skills so am unable to fix or work out what the problems are. I am praying a technician somewhere will turn up one day whom shares the interest in the older gear, and will enjoy learning about it and passing on their knowledge as much as i would too.
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