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
The “thin and light” trend is more focused on consumer products, especially for devices that are meant to be portable and easy to take anywhere.
Industrial grade electronics, such as TV cameras, serve a very different use case. They tend to benefit from having a larger sensor (as that allows absorbing more light, which means a faster shutter speed and less distortion), but that takes up more space. If they’re used in a studio, then they’ll likely be mounted on a tripod where size and weight won’t matter, so it’s beneficial to have more space for electronics, more surface for controls, more room for cooling, etc.
If they’re portable/in-the-field cameras, being large enough to hold on a shoulder allows for better stability than a handheld camera, in addition to the benefits mentioned above.
That said, there are smaller TV cameras available on the market, such as the Blackmagic Studio Camera, where most of the size is composed of a very large viewfinder screen and a small body containing the sensor housing and connections.
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