It appears that the viewfinder worked by viewing the image on the iconoscope mosaic plate. The operator apparently needed to keep his head in place to block stray light.


http://farm6.staticflickr.com/5522/12111893724_d9da32790c_c.jpg (http://www.flickr.com/photos/42002845@N02/12111893724/)
1936-1937 441 line camera003 (http://www.flickr.com/photos/42002845@N02/12111893724/) by old_tv_nut (http://www.flickr.com/people/42002845@N02/), on Flickr

With the cover closed, and the notations on the back of the photos:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/42002845@N02/sets/72157640097777643/

That is pretty cool!

A lot of those strange early flying machines never got off the ground..... This one doesn't even have wings...... Howszit even gunna get goin on the runway....

Looks like the insides of the "O.B.I.T" machine from the Outer Limits. Where is Lomax to operate it?

Nice picture!

I think that's an early RCA 343 line camera.

http://www.tvcameramuseum.org/rca/1934cam/1934-p1.html

Peter

Peter, that is an interesting link. We had identified the camera as from Philco, from 1936 magazine articles. An article written by a 1936 Philco employee mentions that they had to make their own iconoscope since RCA wasn't selling them at the time.

Here is a page with all the photos and the article.

www.earlytelevision.org/rca_1936_camera.html

Notice that there appear to be two similar but different cameras, and two styles of iconoscopes.

Can anyone shed any light on this? Did Philco copy the RCA camera?

Hi Steve,

Yes, I thought I'd seen it before and I also came across the Philco camera. It certainly is very similar. I initially thought I'd seen it as a Philips camera. Perhaps Philips borrowed RCA technology.

Peter

Notice that there appear to be two similar but different cameras, and two styles of iconoscopes.

Can anyone shed any light on this? Did Philco copy the RCA camera?

I understand that RCA were keen to licence the camera tube technology in order to promote the development and hence, the sales of TVs and studio equipment. I saw a note about the licences in a 1936 copy of the RCA Television review.

Looking closely at the cameras they are definitely different in detail but similar in style. They both use viewfinders with mirrors to see the mosiac, whereas EMI (UK) used a twin lens system. Most cameras of the period had a similar layout as dictated by the tube.