How exactly do you get a screen shot from a 32 line mechanical televisor?
 

I had a few attempts to photograph some of the 1960's Dr Who footage I have converted to 32 lines and played via the 32 line Televisor.

The picture on the Televisor is very good indeed with pretty good definition, but the best picture I can get from the set is as below.

Any suggestion on how to get a decent screen shot? It must be possible as people did take screen shots from Televisors in the 20's and 30's. I've tried close ups and distant shots, say 12-18" away, but no success.

Any suggestions?

Peter.

Re: How exactly do you get a screen shot from a 32 line mechanical televisor?
 

You need a time of 1 frame (maybe 2) and a high light setting on the camera. And of course a dark room!

And patience!!!!!

Cheers,

Steve P

Re: How exactly do you get a screen shot from a 32 line mechanical televisor?
 

Hi,

For a start, you need a camera where you can manually control shutter speed, aperture and focus.

Digital cameras seem to be over-sensitive at the red end of the spectrum; you'll probably have to deliberately under-expose to compensate. I had enough hassle trying to photograph a red Hacker RP30, they're more burgundy than anything but my camera (Olympus C-750) thinks they're bright Ferrari red!

I'm getting better at photographing off-screen telelevision pictures from regular CRT sets, running the camera in "fully manual" mode helps a lot. There's definitely a knack to it. At least with a digital camera you can experiment with loads of different settings without running off rolls and rolls of film and all that tedious waiting around for development.

Financial constraints prevent me buying one of the televisors right now (I definitely want one) otherwise I'd experiment with my camera.

Regards, Kat

Re: How exactly do you get a screen shot from a 32 line mechanical televisor?
 

Thought I'd try for some photos because I had taken some successfully before, off my own big home-built televisor (though using an old now-broken digital camera) but I find the little televisor has now gone wrong, neither displaying its own test card nor any plugged-in input!8-o All I get is what looks like hum, but at least it will lock to it...

Steve

Re: How exactly do you get a screen shot from a 32 line mechanical televisor?
 

Hello,

I have got the best results with the Canon Powershot A70:

http://bs.cyty.com/menschen/e-etzold...eVersuche2.JPG
http://bs.cyty.com/menschen/e-etzold...isk_front3.JPG
http://bs.cyty.com/menschen/e-etzold...isk_front2.JPG
http://bs.cyty.com/menschen/e-etzold..._light_pic.JPG

Videos, recorded with the Canon Powershot A70:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9DFcYRxFdTI
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2dmY43KeBuE
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=osF5gg6RKL4

All photos and videos are taken in the "Auto" mode, not in manual mode.

Before I got the Powershot, I have tested several digital cameras. But this was the best for my purposes.

Kind regards
Eckhard

Re: How exactly do you get a screen shot from a 32 line mechanical televisor?
 

Impressive pictures Eckhard! Particularly so because they are mainly of subtle-contrast faces rather than test patterns.

I've now managed to take a photo from the little 'popular' televisor (well down the page) HERE.

Steve

Re: How exactly do you get a screen shot from a 32 line mechanical televisor?
 

That's an impresive picture Steve, glad you got the Televisor running again! What settings did you use to get this picture?

Peter.

Re: How exactly do you get a screen shot from a 32 line mechanical televisor?
 

Hi Steve,

Yes, it looks nice. But I believe that you can still improve the photo quality. In the first attempts I tried to increase the brightness and contrast of the NBTV signal. But I got only some kind of "wooden-cut" photos with sharp dark and white parts and no grey scale. But the video information is saved in the grey-scale parts of the video signal. So I changed and worked with low contrast NBTV signal. Try it. Lower down the contrast until you have the feeling that the picture must be somehow blurry and wishywashy. Then you might get the nicest photos with the digicam.

Kind regards
Eckhard