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The Electronic Camera in Film-Making
By NORMAN COLLINS and T. C. MACNAMARA
The paper considers the cinematograph camera and assesses its inherent limitations. The advantages of multiple-camera working are discussed, with special reference to the electronic camera; the recording of an electronic image is shown to be the culminating development. The paper discusses picture quality, contrast range and tonal fidelity, and the objective and subjective evaluation of definition. The reconciliation of the electronic and photographic viewpoints is shown to be possible, and the standards of the motion-picture and television industries are compared. The paper concludes with a survey of the performance requirements of the electronic camera, the mechanics of motion-picture recording of electronic images and factors governing the choice of film stock.
(1) Introduction
UP TO THE PRESENT, the history of filmmaking has been virtually the history of the cinematograph camera as it was conceived by Friese-Greene and Lumiere. Technical progress in design and development has been constant, but it has been in the direction of improvement and refinement rather than the establishment of new principles.
It is the intention in the paper to show why there is reason to believe that a
Presented at The Institution of Electrical Engineers Convention on the British Contribution to Television, April 28-May 3, 1952, by Norman Collins and T. C. Macnamara, High-Definition Films, Ltd., 25 Catherine St., Aldwych, W.C. 2, England; reprinted from J. Inst. Elec. Engrs. (London), 99, Part III A, No. 20: 673-679, 1952.
change may be impending, and why electronic cameras, with the vastly greater measure of operational flexibility that they can offer, may supersede the purely optical camera as the basic instrument of film production.
To substantiate such a view, the consequences of which would inevitably mean the introduction of far-reaching changes in film-production technique, it is necessary first to examine the characteristics of the traditional optical-mechanical instrument and then to determine how far those characteristics have themselves governed the technique. Secondly, it is relevant to consider why any instrument possessing what, in the view of the authors, are inherent limitations in its application should for so long have been accepted as the standard apparatus of the industry.
It is not suggested that the modern
December 1952 Journal of the SMPTE Vol. 59
445