I was at an event the other day and the media was there. I noticed that the cameras they were using to record and broadcast the event were just as large and bulky as I remember them being when I was a kid in the 80s. Pretty much everything else technology-wise has become more miniaturized in the past 40 years, but apparently not the TV cameras. Why is that?
In: Technology
TV cameras have gotten a lot smaller. Although not much in the last 40 years, but significantly smaller in the last 80 years. There are two things limiting the size of cameras. The first is the size of the lens. You need a certain amount of area to collect the same amount of light and you need the same focal length to get the same shot. This is physics and it is hard to get around the laws of physics. The second thing limiting the size of cameras is ergonomics. In order to keep a camera steady the camera operator needs a certain size of grip. If you make a smaller camera the grips get closer together and it is harder to keep the camera steady. Similarly you want a screen that is big enough that you can watch what you are filming, making the camera smaller and the screen smaller to fit you may have problems seeing the screen.
The TV cameras today are actually smaller then the ones they had in the 80s. At least the camera housing is smaller. In the 80s they needed a lot more space for the electronics and such but they were able to package this around the lens and out to the grips. Modern camera housings can therefore be much smaller and only have the electronics and sensor. You then attach whatever lense, grips, screen, storage, battery, lights, etc. you want. If you add everything you typically need the camera does become just as big as one from the 80s, although maybe a bit lighter. However you can remove components you do not need for certain shots. So you can fit a camera into a much tighter space or you can make it smaller for action shots. This was not possible in the 80s.
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