Recreating the look of tube cameras
 

I'm a big fan of 1970s BBC studio drama. This was generally shot with the EMI 2001 camera. I want to shoot footage today and give it the same look. It doesn't need to be exact, just the general feel.

Clearly, the most authentic results would be obtained using an original 70s studio camera... sadly not possible. I have to go the digital route.

So I've been fiddling around with digitally-shot footage in After Effects, trying to get it to look like 70s tube studio footage. Not much success yet. I tried recreating it "from the ground up", processing the image as the camera would have (separate the three colours and the luminance then re-layer them) but it only got me so far. I can't work out what's missing!

The problem may be to do with how the separate channels are blended. Here Wikipedia describes what the EMI 2001 did, but not how the blending was done. Can anyone guess (or does anyone know) the equations that were used?

I'd also appreciate people's views on the characteristics of footage shot on a high-quality tube camera. How would you describe it? (Please give helpful adjectives!) I used to think "desaturated", but that's not right because some tube footage has very vivid colour.

Here are some stills from the 1970s. This is the look I'm after:
Blake's 7
Blake's 7 again
Unknown program
Survivors
The Guardians (multiple images)

How to recreate images like that?

I can do programming if that's a better way to go than After Effects. In either case I will make the resulting processor public so that anyone can use it (depending on how successful my efforts are!).

Re: Recreating the look of tube cameras
 

Do you have an example of where you are at with the process now? Also, what camera and settings are you using to get the look?
Seems like you need either a dslr or af00/fs100 or similar to get the correct DOF. My 7D has been "dumbed down" to make it easier to grade with regular video cameras resulting in a desaturated look compared to stock but plenty of color left to look proper.

To my eye, the lighting and relatively shallow dof stand out more than the color. Yes it has a look but not anything that can't be reproduced.
I think it kinda like asking "why doesn't my dslr look like that feature film I just saw?"
It's not just the camera that creates the look. Lighting is a huge part of the equation. In your example pics, the lighting seems pretty harsh and theres a really strong backlight or overhead light. The backgrounds are lit up b pretty bright as well. After lighting similarly, some grading might be all that's necessary. The outdoor "Survivors" looks like it came right off my 7D.

If you do work out a solution that can be applied to any footage, I'd love to see it. Just think there's more to it on the shooting end.

Re: Recreating the look of tube cameras
 

In the 1970s, British television would have used hard lighting using Fresnel spots in the studios, which would be large part of the look.

The EMI 2001 had a camera control unit EMI 2001 Camera Control Unit, which had to be lined up everyday using test charts, after that a vision engineer would've matched the cameras by eye EMI 2001 operational control and colour balance panels*.

Re: Recreating the look of tube cameras
 

"Survivors" was shot not with 2001's, but with Bosch KCR40's, as was a great deal of BBC location drama of the period. Googling has turned up this: http://www.smecc.org/video/BoschKCR40.pdf . I don't think any of it was ever shot with EMI2001s/studio, it was all location based and film or KCR40s.

For depth of field, the tubes were 1" - but the zoom lenses of the period tended to be somewhat smaller max aperture than may be the norm now, and would be unlikely to be used wide open anyway. (They would be unacceptably soft.) Hence, dof typically roughly comparable to 2/3" cameras today - so far greater than any of the DSLR etc cameras.

Probably the biggest difference with modern cameras would be the absence of any sort of "knee" function, so if a highlight started to overexpose - that's it, it would go pure white. That was something DISLIKED at the time, seen as very "un-filmlike". A lot of the characteristics aren't really possible to do in post, they'd be the result of a tube characteristic, and due to the way the light and tube reacted together. (Comet-tailing as an example.) Even if you could simulate a comet-tail effect in post, the original light overload wouldn't be available in the recorded signal.

Other characteristics are such as lag in the lowlights, and a distinctive noise pattern. If you really want to try re-creating a look, a reasonable first step may be to try reducing the chroma sharpness from what most modern cameras give, and maybe also adding some LF chroma noise. They seem to have a sort of colour "painted-in" look to them.

Re: Recreating the look of tube cameras
 

Thanks for replying, Robert.

>Do you have an example of where you are at with the process now? Also, what camera and settings are you using to get the look?
My only camera is a camcorder, and it is away with a friend at the moment. My AFX project has been developed using the most generic modern image I could find: a digital still. I realise it would be better to use actual footage but that isn't possible at the moment. If you like, I can post "before" and "after" pictures showing what my AFX project does to the image.

>you need either a dslr or af00/fs100 or similar to get the correct DOF.
Are you referring to the Canon FS100 or the Sony NEX-FS100?

>My 7D has been "dumbed down" to make it easier to grade with regular video cameras resulting in a desaturated look
What do you mean by "dumbed down"?

>To my eye, the lighting and relatively shallow dof stand out more than the color.
Can shallow depth of field be achieved using special lenses with a camera like the 7D?

>Yes it has a look but not anything that can't be reproduced.
Well I hope you're right!

>Lighting is a huge part of the equation. In your example pics, the lighting seems pretty harsh and theres a really strong backlight or overhead light.
Yes, studio stuff in those days relied on heavy overhead lighting because the cameras, IIUC, required lots of light to avoid graininess.

>The outdoor "Survivors" looks like it came right off my 7D.
I'd love to see some footage taken with your 7D!

Re: Recreating the look of tube cameras
 

Yes, I know Survivors was not made with the EMI 2001. However, to my untrained eye the look of Survivors is similar enough to the look of Doctor Who and Blake's 7 for me to use it as a reference point along with the other shows. I have no "loyalty" to any specific camera, merely to the period in general!

1970s tube cameras had a wider DOF than modern DSLR cameras?

That sounds like something that could be faked with post-production image processing. Just find a pixel that's above a certain brightness level (or the average brightness level for the shot) and change it to pure white. What do you think about that?

I know that one should be realistic about this, but aren't you being unduly pessimistic? Why can't the interaction between light and tube be recreated with a computer program that analyses the image, apes the tubes' limitations, and outputs an altered image? Is it because pixel-by-pixel analysis "misses the point", so to speak?

Yes, comet tailing is an artefact I'm very fond of, and I've investigated separately how to emulate it. It's certainly not something that can be automated but apparently very convincing results can be obtained using Trapcode Particular and AFX's Echo effect.

I'm not sure I understand you correctly. Are you saying that a computer program wouldn't know where to do a comet trail because a modern camera wouldn't overload? (I think this could be got around using brightness analysis, or by doing the comet trails by hand.)

What do you mean by "lag" in the lowlights?

The noise pattern is problematic. I'm not sure how to approach this. I will have to analyse noise in period footage and see what I can do. You say it is distinctive... how would you describe it?

I am not au fait with these terms. By "reducing the chroma sharpness" do you mean desaturating the colours?

What do you mean by "LF chroma noise"?

I don't mean to be rude; I'm learning all this stuff as I go!

Re: Recreating the look of tube cameras
 

>you need either a dslr or af00/fs100 or similar to get the correct DOF.
Sony NEX-FS100

>My 7D has been "dumbed down" to make it easier to grade with regular video cameras resulting in a desaturated look
What do you mean by "dumbed down"?

I used Mr. Bloom's recommended settings ...I believe it is
Sharpness all the way down, Contrast all the way down, and Saturation down 2 notches

>To my eye, the lighting and relatively shallow dof stand out more than the color.
Can shallow depth of field be achieved using special lenses with a camera like the 7D?

Seems there is some confusion on the terminology with a few posters here...
DSLRs excel at shallow DOF meaning with a low f-stop number, there is a very narrow field that remains in focus, all else is blurred. No special lenses needed...I can get really nice bokeh even with my 100-400 at f5.6. I recently did 4 days of shooting with my 70-200 f4 at f4 with a variable ND to control light and it yielded the result I was referring to in comparison to the outdoor example you showed.

>The outdoor "Survivors" looks like it came right off my 7D.
I'd love to see some footage taken with your 7D!

My reel is on my website as well as vimeo...7D stuff starts around 1:30 and 2:01 (has a very different feel from my XF300) and has been graded so it's a little different. I'll post a raw example when I'm back at my edit station. Keep in mind there is a difference in look also with me shooting 30p.
25fps looks different...were the tube cameras interlaced?

Re: Recreating the look of tube cameras
 

I think they were f2.2, but they'd usually stopped down on a production.

Came across this training video of the EMI 2001

‪EMI 2001 Broadcast Camera Training Video (BBC) Part 2‬‏ - YouTube

The big advantage of the camera was the compact design compared to studio cameras with the zoom lens stuck on the front. They continued to be used into the 1980s on Eastenders.

Yes, those curved gammas were seen to be a disadvantage to the video engineers at the time.

Re: Recreating the look of tube cameras
 

The point I was thinking of is that it was being wondered if "the look" had much to do with the 4-tube system of the EMI2001 - the KCR40 was 3-tube, so I think the answer is mostly "no". I've noticed that "Tenko" is just being repeated in the UK at the moment (the Yesterday channel), I don't know if you've seen that? Most episodes are a mixture of KCR40s for exteriors, EMI2001s for interiors, but the "look" is very similar.
To a first approximation, the linear dimensions of a full frame 35mm camera are about 2.5-3 times greater than a 1" plumbicon tube, which corresponds to something like about 3 stops.Following on from what Brian said, they would ideally have been used at around f2.8, which would correspond to about f8 with full frame 35mm for depth of field purposes.
It's because in an image the modern camera has made certain irrevocable decisions, so you've lost some information that is really needed to do what you propose. It's because a tube camera would react very differently to "just about white" than "very much brighter than white". All your programme will know is that a given pixel is now "white" - not what it was in the original scene.
You must excuse me, but it would be funny to go back in time to the engineers of the day with that comment. :-)

But one way you may be able to get round this is to deliberately start off with a grossly underexposed image, such that all the usable detail is (say) within the lowest 25% of the range, then increase the gain, clipping off everything above 25%. At the same time, you then have the information between 25 and 100% to process to simulate the "tube look". (So only levels of (say) 75-100% would comet tail.) It would also increase the noise - but that may not matter given what you're trying to do.
An image in the shadows may leave a sort of trail with movement to a far greater extent than a brightly lit object.
No, it's reducing the detail in the colour information, whilst preserving detail in luminance. The effect then becomes analogous to a childs colouring book. A detailed black-white drawing, with colour roughly painted over the top. With PAL coding, the signal bandwidth (corresponding to resolution of vertical lines)was of the order of 5.5MHz, but that applied to luminance only. The colouring information had a bandwidth of typically more like 1.3MHz max, or maybe only a quarter. And the PAL effect in the vertical direction was to trade off vertical chroma detail for chroma fidelity, so the same applied to horizontal lines. It can get away with it as it takes advantage of the physiology of the eye, which is far more sensitive to changes in brightness than colour.

LF="low frequency", so noise affecting the colour bits of the picture more than luminance, and being "splodgy" rather than fine dots.

Re: Recreating the look of tube cameras
 

Wow this is getting technical! Cool to read all this stuff even though half of it goes way over my head! In any case, below is a short sample of the 7D with the PB settings. Canon 70-200 f4 lens probably around 120mm at f6.4 shooting 1080 30p shutter set to 1/60 and iso at 100.
not sure if this helps as a starting point but it's a much flatter picture than the stock settings.
I havent shot much indoor lit stuff with the 7D but if I get the chance, I'll try to duplicate the lighting from the stills and see how that looks!

Re: Recreating the look of tube cameras
 

The another point is that the EMI 2001 is interlace and that has a different look to 25p or 30p,

Re: Recreating the look of tube cameras
 

Would it be possible to shoot at 25p then fake the interlacing in post?

That would be incredibly useful for me, as it would show how modern cameras handle overhead lighting in terms of end results. I'd be very grateful indeed! Footage shot with overhead lighting, and with a similar depth of field to the old tube cameras, would enable me to compare like with like when writing my processing program.

Here are some A/B comparisons I've just made with my program. The first two were taken with a digital still camera, the third with a Canon XL2, and the fourth you'll recognise.

http://img600.imageshack.us/img600/7262/unled1nh.png

http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/143/unled2km.png

http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/148/unled3fq.png

http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/29/unled4vk.png

Re: Recreating the look of tube cameras
 

Definately not. 25p has film type "jerky motion", the cameras you're trying to emulate have the smooth motion that goes with true interlace. You can simulate "film look" motion from interlace - but not the other way around.
But at the same aperture, something like a 7D will have a far shallower depth of field than such as a 2001, so I don't really see what this would prove? To make a sensible comparison, you'd have to be about three stops closed on such as a large sensor camera compared to what a 2001 would have been at - typically f8 or smaller.

If you can't afford a 2/3" camera, then for dof purposes a 1/2" like an EX would be a far better starting point than a DSLR or a FS100.

Re: Recreating the look of tube cameras
 

Do you mean Sony's PMW-EX range? It appears they are all 2/3 except for one which is 1/2. Do you think 2/3 would be closer to the EMI-2001?

I notice the EX range don't do 25i. They do 50i, though. Could that be used, simply ignoring every second frame?

Re: Recreating the look of tube cameras
 

The Sony EX 1 & 3 are 1/2" sensor cameras, An alternative might be to use a Panasonic AF100, which has 50i and you might be able to set up a pretty straight gamma curve using the camera's menus or at least not have the knee.

50i is the standard method of referring to 25 fps interlace as used by PAL. Some people say 25i, but it's the same thing.

Re: Recreating the look of tube cameras
 

If we assume the 2001s would normally be used f2.8 to f4, that would be matched for dof by a 2/3" camera at f2-f2.8. But 2/3" cameras tend to be expensive, hence the suggestion of an EX. 1/2" chips, so a stops worth greater depth of field, but used wide open it would be pretty close. A DSLR would be a poor match - unless used very stopped down, which rather defeats the point. Same goes for any large sensor camera - you'd get a closer match with an EX.

But frankly, dof is far from the main thing that needs matching. It's the way modern sensors respond so differently compared to plumbicon tubes that is most important, hence my earlier comments.
It's the same thing, but the nomenclature changed. The "official" way of describing 1080i in the UK is 1080i/25 (according to the EBU), the old way used to be 1080/50i. That said, a lot of people are still using the old terminology, and that includes menus in some cameras, though the old terminology is slowly going away. (It used to be the case that with interlace the number quoted was fields, with progressive it was frames. The people who set the standards decided it was preferable to always refer to frames/sec, for both interlace and progressive. Hence for the UK, standards are properly written 1080i/25 and 1080p/25.)

Re: Recreating the look of tube cameras
 

I read here a guy saying he had customised the knee and gamma on that camera, so it obviously enables customisation there.

It is a 4/3 camera. People on Amazon say it is good for shallow depth of field. Perhaps this is the perfect camera for my purposes?

Re: Recreating the look of tube cameras
 

The reason I suggested it was because it's close to the 30mm tube size. However, 1970s British TV didn't go in for the shallow depth of field effect, during that period that would've mostly been seen on 35mm feature films.

Many modern video cameras have set up menus that allow you adjust the look of the camera.

Re: Recreating the look of tube cameras
 

Well, the crucial thing for me is the appearance of British TV at that time. Other people have said the EMI-2001 stills show shallow depth of field but you're saying 70s British TV didn't go in for that. This is all quite confusing for me!

I am eager to "summarise" the various suggestions that people have made.

FILMING:

• light from above, preferably harsh lights such as Fresnel
• no knee
• interlaced 25fps
• similar depth of field (this needs clarification)

POST-PRODUCTION:

• increase highlights to full white
• remix colours to emulate tube blending
• synthesise comet trails by hand

Does anyone have any comments on that process?

Re: Recreating the look of tube cameras
 

Here are some more stills taken from Survivors, as reference points. Scroll down to the text "DVD Preview". There are more in the linked pages "Series 2 DVD" and "Series 3 DVD".

Re: Recreating the look of tube cameras
 

Kinda cool seeing the EMI 2001 training video. Interesting to note that the EMI 2001 was so heavy it needed four people to mount it on a pedestal... and that when it was introduced in 1967, it was considered to be an absolutely state of the art piece of equipment.

I've always liked the look that British TV was known for back in the days of tube cameras... it had a warmth and depth to it that seemed absent from TV productions in North America.

Re: Recreating the look of tube cameras
 

You may find this helpful - Image sensor format - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia and scroll down to the end to find the table. For depth of field purposes, the area measurements are maybe most useful - doubling the figure is equivalent to a difference of a stop. So you can see that compared to an AF101, the 1" tubes of the KCR40 correspond to a stop different - if we assume f4 for a 1" camera, you'd have to work at f5.6 with an AF101. Use a 1/2" camera, and you'd be at f2.

The trouble with using an AF101 may then be sensitivity. No problem in good lighting (just use ND), but in lower levels you'd have to open iris and be at far shallower dof than you're trying to achieve.

But frankly I think all this talk of dof and large sensors is a bit of a red herring. As Brian says, the look you're after never really had the shallow effect that seems to have become the current craze. Yes, there'd be a certain differentiation, but not to the extent that is currently fashionable.

As for lighting, then much of Survivors is exteriors, so the subject of lighting is also not really relevant to define "the tube camera look". (I do have the programme on DVD.)

Re: Recreating the look of tube cameras
 

Then what do you think defines "the tube camera look"? Do you think it's purely to do with how the tubes processed light?

Did you see the processed stills I linked to? They were made by my computer program. For each pixel, it gets the channel values, then lays them G>R>B>L using the "Add" blending mode. Would you say the effect was "tube-like"?

You also mentioned a "distinctive noise pattern" in tube footage. How would you say it differs from any other type of noise? (I'm thinking of AFX's bog-standard "Noise" effect, for example.)

Re: Recreating the look of tube cameras
 

The tubes would be a large part of the look, but there is an entire signal chain which is analogue rather than digital and you also have to work within the confines of that old system. I guess that might be like trying to recreate the sound of analogue sound recordings using digital equipment.

Re: Recreating the look of tube cameras
 

I recall in the early 80's when CCD's first came in how the camera dept were very sceptical about them as they didn't have the look of tube cameras, I suppose we have the same situation now with CMOS.

We did lots of music shows at Tyne Tees TV at the time including The Tube (no pun intended) U2 at red rocks and Queen live at wembley and the tube camera's could be a real pain due to the burning that occurred on the tubes due to the lights, the hand held's were also quite poor quality compared to the marconi Mk7's and the thompson camera's we had in the studio and on OB's.

The programmes are being repeated on sky arts at the moment and they look very good and at times a lot better than some of the betacam and other DVcam content that is on air.

I suppose the best way to emulate old tube camera's is to record at the best quality possible and do it in the grading process although I do also recall a lot of people not liking the look of some tube camera's as they were too clean and cold looking compared to the film that we also used at the time.

As also said a lot of the BBC look was down to the lighting and the studio would have had lots of 5k and 10k lights to get good exposure, re-creating that these days may be impossible but some of the old BBC ser from the 70's still look very good on screen and Yesterday has been repeating some of them recently.

Re: Recreating the look of tube cameras
 

There was varying levels of aperture correction (electronic emphasis of higher frequencies) applied, quite often until you got the edge enhancement effect, which was the look that some TV stations used,.

Re: Recreating the look of tube cameras
 

I certainly think that's the main aspect, though I agree with what Brian says about the whole analogue signal chain. Including PAL coding, and the way it made the chrominance resolution far less than luminance - it probably equates to something like 4:1:0 in modern parlance, or even less. And people worry about "only" 4:2:0 these days..... :-)
Yes, that's interesting. I do remember location drama with electronic cameras being regarded as inferior to film at the time, for the sort of aspects you say. But what's interesting now about seeing some of the "Tenko" being repeated is that one series used electronic cameras for the exteriors, the later one used film. (All interiors done electronically, both series.) And now I find the electronic exteriors far preferable to those done on film - the film ones just look dull. And the electronic cameras match well to the studio interiors - the film exteriors don't.

For that reason, I'm not so sure about the "look" of these 70's cameras being much down to lighting. In the case of Tenko (and Survivors) what is being referred to is exterior work, and in many cases with only natural lighting.

Re: Recreating the look of tube cameras
 

Yes, the film inserts really stand out now, however, they always did. Perhaps the film inserts signified this is a real place, rather just a TV studio set. Although, if you run that old film through a modern telecine the quality increase is amazing.

Re: Recreating the look of tube cameras
 

I was a BBC lighting cameraman during the seventies and have to cringe when I see some of my footage on dramas today on archive programmes.. Funny that at the time, the film inserts never looked as bad as they do now...!

Re: Recreating the look of tube cameras
 

Perhaps the television sets have improved in recent years, or the compression used in the transmission chain doesn't like the film inserts compared to the cleaner video. They certainly look a lot more muddy.

Re: Recreating the look of tube cameras
 

In the 70s inserts were at 16mm played in on a Rank Cintel Telecine (where I was) via studio then on to VT (2inch quad). Problem was the small amounts of playback mechanical stability in the telecine gate resulted in flutter-like jitter which, inserted into video, stood out noticeably. Similar too the noise (film grain) in some scenes.

In response to the OP: BBC are running a series called The Hour (on tonight I think in the UK) - I think they've recreated some plumb tube shots. Crushed highlights, large depth of field and a washed out looking chromaticity.

Gary N is correct, the "look" was fairly flat and "hot" due to the lighting. Keys were predominantly 10Ks. If I can remember levels of 150-180 ft/candles (old term).

EMI 2001s - crikey, that takes me back...

:)

Re: Recreating the look of tube cameras
 

Update: The Hour is set in the 50s so it won't be plumbicons then - my error. I thought it was a drama in the 70s. Sorry.

:)

Re: Recreating the look of tube cameras
 

More likely image orthicon in the 1950s.

You must've been working in the big TV studios for the 10ks, the smaller TV studios would've been more 2ks, with the odd 5k.

I guess with a f2.8 a f4 split at 150-180 ft/candles, the EMI 2001 would've had an ISO of about 100.

Re: Recreating the look of tube cameras
 

Yep, that's right Brian - I believe at the time it had two of the biggest LE (Light Entertainment) Studios in Europe.

Not sure how this converts into DSLR speak? In racks you just pushed and pulled the iris quadrant paddle gizmo along with the black level rotary twiddle thing - using the push to monitor dooby. Let the camera guy frame and focus - team work!

:)

Re: Recreating the look of tube cameras
 

David must be right about the lighting not contributing to the tube camera "look". Obviously it contributes to studio footage (overhead lighting of actors and sets) but since this doesn't apply to exterior filming, which still has "the tube look", there's obviously something else at play.

Likewise DOF can be discounted.

As for comet trails, I'm not bothered about them. They're a decoration that can be added afterwards (or so I'm reliably informed!) by hand.

Highlights overloading into pure white is not something I'm bothered about either. There are pretty artefacts and annoying artefacts!

Which leaves us with the basic, generic look of something shot on a high quality tube camera. (I don't want it to look like old camcorder footage!) Perhaps, after all this discussion, the basic look could be achieved simply with grading?

This is why I asked at the start how people would describe tube camera footage. It may be better to look at the end results rather than the building blocks that go into making it.

• It's not saturation. Some tube footage is very vivid.
• It's not a lack of darkness. Some tube footage is very dark
• It's not grain or noise. Some tube footage is very clean
• It's not depth of field, for reasons described by other people. Indeed, a lot of footage I've been watching shows a pretty wide depth of field.

So what does that leave us with? I still don't know where to begin!

As I said before, I've replicated the process in After Effects. R,G and B layers (shrunk to 25% then enlarged again, to eliminate detail) then the luminance layer on top (not resized, so full sharpness). It doesn't have "the look". I've experimented with tweaking it - overlay a black layer with Soft Light blending, same with grey, etc. - but the tube look just isn't emerging!

Re: Recreating the look of tube cameras
 

Agreed. I much prefer video to film in those 70s/80s programmes. For example, in Blake's 7, exteriors are fine on film because you expect it, but occasionally there is studio stuff shot on film and it looks really nasty.

However, the Doctor Who Restoration Team have achieved great results by scanning in 70s 16mm film on modern telecines. It does look a lot better.

Re: Recreating the look of tube cameras
 

A grubby method of getting "trails" in post is to stack the same clip in several layers on the timeline with each clip one frame late and reduce the transparency of each overlaid clip to a fraction of 100% which you calculate from the number of clips you decide to stack, eg., 5 clips, the four ovelaid clips each at 20% transparency.

You have to play with the levels in effects on each of the clips. It is really timeconsuming. The following clip is not a tube camera emulation.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VUStQzrirZA

Whilst for this clip, I used the delayed layer method for video noise reduction of an old VHS copy of a VHS recording out of a deceased estate, if you look closely, you can see the smear effect on highlights in the water movements. To reproduce the smoothness of interlace cameras, my person preference would be with my EX1, to shoot at 50P 1280 x 720, light for contrast, let highlights blow out, then in post, use frame blend, 5 layer stacks and contrast effects to get the laggy look (trails), export that clip, then re-import it, change the speed and select frame blend "on" to restore the normal frame rate.


A hypothetical.

In absence of using a real studio tube camera of the times, another very awkward way to treat modern footage would be to reproduce it to a modern camera through a night-vision intensifier from a high defninition display, Electophysics Corp Astroscope likely the best.

Night-vision is the last remains of tube based image technology but likely to fade away as solid state devices have now emerged. It has the blowout and overload characteristics although there is some modern improvement to minimise this.

You need to be careful to keep light levels really low with very heavy ND filtering, infrared filtering to keep out the infrared light to preserve more sharpness ( techie thing of long explanatio ) and lens iris settings.

Overloading the tube will damage it.

Record the playback of the clip three times, each with only one colour channel permitted by using filter gels between the camera lens.

Each clip will be monochrome green which is the colour of night-vision tube display to the camera. Desaturate each of the recordings to remove the green, then apply colour tint in effects to restore to each its colour information. Stack the layers without any delay between them. Apply fractional transparency to the two overlaid clips. Levels and contrast effects would be needed.

No warranty of satisfactory performance is made with express or implied - hypothetical only.

I have delay stacked monochrome night-vision footage to reduce display tube noise and the effect is very much like the original tube-camera smear.

Re: Recreating the look of tube cameras
 

Well shot 1970's 16mm film has a lot of information that the old telecines couldn't extract.

The EMI 2001 had an interesting method of creating its image.The luminance tube was used more for sharpness and fine picture detail, rather than the luminance.

EMI 2001 - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The look can vary from programme to programme, LE tending to be more vivid looking than the serious dramas.

Re: Recreating the look of tube cameras
 

The main "look" for me from old tube cameras is the ringing on edges around subjects. I seem to remember it being white / black depending on the scan direction, so the left edge - say - might be white and the right one black.

Re: Recreating the look of tube cameras
 

I've heard about this before, and I think I can identify it in, say, this image.

But can you tell me where the ringing is in this image?