1965 Zenith Roundie on Youtube

[Phil Nelson]

Originally Posted by compucat

The problem I have is that any attempt to film or photograph a color tv picture always turns out too blue.

Me too, for B/W as well as color.

When I was still using a 35mm film camera to take photos for my website, I got a blue filter to compensate for shooting under indoor lights using daylight (i.e., "outdoor") film. That worked for the overall picture. Maybe it would help the blue-screen problem, too.

Now most of us are using digital cameras, which may not accept filters or have appropriate color adjustments. It's worth poking around your camera's user guide, or experimenting with whatever settings it has, anyhow.

Oh -- and I just remembered that I have a powerful (250W) blue photographer's light bulb that gives the same effect indoors as using a blue filter. I haven't used it in ages because it throws off a fierce amount of heat and I don't have a good lighting stand for it.

If you bring your camera to a decent camera store and explain your goal, maybe they can fix you up with something.

For still pictures of B/W sets, in some cases I have said, "The heck with it," and just copied the screen portion of the digital photo, changed it to monochrome, then pasted it back into the photo. Maybe that's cheating, but the result looks like the TV set when you actually view it.

A similar trick is to put the camera on a tripod and take two photos -- one with the TV turned off, to get the right cabinet colors, and another with the TV turned on. Paste the screen shot into the cabinet photo, and voila!

Phil Nelson
Phil's Old Radios
http://antiqueradio.org/index.html