J. Stephen McDonald |
March 8th, 2006 08:47 PM |
Quote:
Originally Posted by James Emory
The first prosumer camera that I saw being used on network TV was a Canon L1 Hi8 camcorder. It was used on ABC's Primetime Live back in 1994 for undercover work for their stories because it blended in without being so obvious. It was then that I got excited about the possibility of these newer cameras being accepted as good enough for TV! When was your first sighting of a prosumer camera used on a network show?
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Well, I've had a Canon L1 for 13 years and I can't say it'd be the best for going undercover. Its smaller A-1 brother would have been better and I saw several of those on NASA Shuttle flights. The L-1 weighs only about 6 lbs. when loaded, but that light-colored lens sticks out a mile and in those days caught a lot of attention. When I first started shooting with it at track meets, the broadcast crews were fascinated by it and wanted to handle and play around with it. I even gave them several shots of record performances they'd missed. They tucked them into their footage, just assuming they'd be high-quality. I suppose after color-correcting the images and running them through a TBC, they were passable. I'm sure they thought it was a more substantial camcorder than I did, after I'd experienced its mediocre picture quality and faded colors. What a great model that could have been, in its time and category, if Canon had let the original prototype be produced, instead of the dumbed-down thing they sold. The upgraded L-2 prototype had a 700,000-pixel CCD, with advanced color filters, digital audio, a TBC and numerous other groundbreaking features, but all these got trashed by the bean-counters in the budget office. The highly-anticipated L-2 that was delivered, was not one whit better than the L-1 and had only a couple of added editing features and $1,000. more tacked onto its price. It was the most highly-touted camcorder ever, before it was ever sold. Its almost magical reputation preceeded, but did not follow it. My little Sony TR700 of '94, in spite of having consumerized and mostly automated controls, was twice the camera in video quality.
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