The Cine Technician (1953-1956)

86 CINE TECHNICIAN A Technician's Notebook June 1956 BRIGHTER THAN TUNGSTEN A new lamp that transforms radio impulses into light so brilliant that it is brighter than any existing tungsten light source, has been designed by the Sylvania Company in the U.S.A. The lamp uses the same type of radio signal that transmits sound to radio television receivers and is not connected by wires to the source of its activating energy. It is known as the R.F. (radio frequency) lamp; its makers claim that it provides a concentrated and uniform source of light — so concentrated that nearly all the light produced by the lamp is usable. The film industry is already using this lamp to speed up printing operations. The first commercial installation of the RF lamp was made by Consolidated Film Industries, who report that use of the light source in optical printing equipment resulted in increased uniformity of field, exceptional increase in light output and greater lamp life. They predict that eventually all optical printing equipment will be converted to RF light and that this will be only the first Edited by A. E. JEAKINS step towards even wider laboratory applications. Sylvania are now working on the possibility of using the RF light for studio set lighting, where one of its advantages would be that the heat which in other lamps is radiated in the RF lamp is conducted out. It was mentioned earlier that the energy used to produce the light in the RF lamp is the same as that used in TV and radio. In the case of the RF lamp, the energy is concentrated into a small disc about ,, of an inch in diameter, causing it to incandesce brilliantly. The disc is of refractory material which because it can be heated to a much higher temperature than a tungsten filament, produces a greater intensity of light, and for the same reason the light has a higher blue content and more emission in the visible range. The use of a disc instead of a wire filament means that the light can be focused directly without a complicated optical system. The RF energy is carried to the lamp from a radio frequency oscillator by means of a copper coil wound round the outside of the lamp. A DC voltage source is used and the brightness of the lamp can be controlled by varying the voltage. A water line can be connected to cool the lamp and coil. (Charles Loring, American Cinematographer). Camera of 1910 A story of particular interest in connection with the 60th Anniversary of public cinema in this country is that of a Polish pioneer of the cinema who worked for a time in England and who designed the first cine camera with a practical self-contained driving mechanism. Put into manufacture here, this camera was used by the main newsreel companies. The pioneer was Kazimierz Proszynski (born 1875; died 1945, victim of the Nazi Germans). His first cine apparatus dates back to 1894, and by 1898 he was associated with the public showing of films in Warsaw. Between 1908 and 1910, in France, he developed a portable camera and its manufacture was begun in England in 1912. The camera, called the Aeroscope, was powered by compressed air and could be loaded with 400 feet of film. The arrival of this camera in London was warmly welcomed by one of the leading personalities in the field of ' actualities,' Cherry Kearton, presently to be better known for his nature films. Kearton proved the capabilities of the Aeroscope in a number of ways. He took it up in a balloon for aerial shots of London in 1912, Tin; AEROSCOPE took it to America and Africa for filming wild animal life, and used it for reportage work in SouthWest Africa during the 1914-18 War. Soon Gaumont and Pathe, then Topical, and later Paramount and Movietone newsreel cameramen were using Aeroscope cameras. In particular, they were found good for reporting sports events, and there are amusing stories of the Aeroscope being smuggled on to football fields in picnic baskets for " stolen " pictures of big matches. State occasions too were filmed with this versatile camera, which was also used for aerial work from planes and once at least, it seems, for travelling shots in a ballroom scene for a feature film. During the Balkan War of 1912 and then the First World War, the Aeroscope served in reportage work at the front. The Aeroscope continued in use right through the 1920s and even into the early 1930s. It went out with the coming of sound film and of other types of camera with better alternative driving mechanisms. B. and E. ORNA.