1978 RCA CC001 consumer color camera

This was RCA's first consumer color camera. It took them almost 30 years, from the early 50s when they made the TK-41 , to 1978 when they finally made a color camera for consumers. They packed a lot into the camera for it to be self-contained. Because of this, the camera is very heavy!

The camera uses a 1 inch (striped target) vidicon tube, and the lens you see here is the lens the camera came with when it was new, a zoom lens was an accessory. Another accessory, was an electronic viewfinder, as you can see, the viewfinder mounted on it is an optical viewfinder, which doesn't even see through the lens. The connector for the electronic viewfinder is on the side, with a cover on it. A very confusing thing about the optical viewfinder is, it's 16:9!!(see photo 5) (Obviously) the camera produces a 4:3 raster, and optical viewfinders are already bad enough, so why make it 16:9?? Also, there is no shoulder pad! 15 pounds pushing down on your shoulder through a hard piece of plastic.

I restored this camera a few years ago, and had to recap the whole thing. It's working very nicely, and makes typical video for a single tube color camera of the era.