Viewfinder Hoods

Alec Bray

I was always puzzled by the missing viewfinder hoods.

The EMI 203, Marconi Mk IV and Pye Mk V had viewfinders fixed into the body of the cameras.  Separate viewfinder hoods slotted into place and could be tilted up and down as required (other cameras had moveable viewfinder and hood assemblies).

You would have thought  – one camera, one viewfinder hood: a pairing for life.  But no!  In the mid- 1960s there were times when we came to rig a studio and find that one camera would have a missing viewfinder hood. (Part of me wants to say "many times"!)

I seem to remember that, on most of these occasions, the senior cameraman would donate his viewfinder hood to the poor lad with the missing hood.  Which left the senior cameraman without a hood.  A piece of card – er, perhaps cue card? – taped across the top of the back of the camera would be the immediate answer.

But we had worked on "Blue Peter"!  We knew all about sticky-backed plastic and such things – and we had a good supply of camera tape.

I can remember a number of days on which I spent a good part of the morning constructing viewfinder hoods out of card.  If you scouted around the studios and store rooms, you could usually scrounge the materials that you needed to make a hood.  One of the later card viewfinder hoods  I was reasonably pleased with, the pinnacle of the card and paper viewfinder hood maker’s art,  it not only slotted into place, but had split pins in each side cheek to allow the main body and top of the hood to be tilted up or down as would the real thing. It was substantial enough to last the whole programme.

But why were the viewfinder hoods missing in the first place?

Yes, things used to go missing – a complete Marconi Mk 4 from TC2 overnight before a  TW3 for example – but it seems odd that people would remove viewfinder hoods!

Geoff Fletcher

They went missing at Anglia TV too! Here’s one I made to use on “Backs To The Land” in 1976.

Peter Fox

Basically the standard viewfinder hood was too long for studio ped work. The "approved" length at one time was 10 inches, supposedly right for long term eye close focussing.

The BBC consulted an optician, but took no account of the fact that a cameraman is not just staring down the hood all day from a fixed position but dynamically swinging the back of the camera past his face when crabbing at low angles. Also, even when more user friendly variants were developed they sometimes had a stiffening component across the bottom which obscured part of the screen. The remedy was to make a cardboard one that was about half the length and open at the bottom. This is the opposite of OB requirements and I have seen a cameramen make an extra long cardboard hood to keep the sun out. I have no idea how common a trick that was though, except on “Eastenders” outdoors when either the long fully enclosed hood was fitted or perhaps a scarf or black cloth wrapped round a short one.

All these mods meant putting aside the currently unsuitable hood, which therefore was vulnerable to getting mislaid or at least accumulating in the wrong area until a search and recover operation could be mounted!

Peter Cook

On OBs we generally had a long and short vf hood with each camera, safely stowed in the ditty box. They varied  in length dependant on the manufacturer or the fashion of the day. I remember there were some medium length.

On fast moving sport, or say airshows, it was often necessary to use a long hood as an aid to panning and tilting giving a 3rd point of contact.

On more leisurely shows, the top and two sides variety sometimes needed cardboard modification when a long or medium hood restricted viewing but a short one let in too much ambient light.

The only times I remember ‘losing’ a hood was just that. In a rapid de rig in the dark it was not unknown for small bits of kit to be genuinely lost.

Mechanical workshops did good line in replacement or modified versions.

Steve Edwards

Some interesting information on the use of viewfinder hoods there.

Please note: If anyone is guilty of misplacing any of those Lens or Viewfinder hoods in the past and has since discovered the whereabouts of any that may have inadvertently found their way into their lofts or garages, then please do get in touch as you may be able to assist with some long overdue reuniting of missing hoods with some of my cameras…

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Geoff Fletcher

SOME of your cameras? How many have you got,  and what types are they? There is a scrap dealer here in Norfolk who seems to get TV kit coming up for sale quite a lot lately. Last example which might have interested you was an ex Anglia Marconi Mk 8 (?) and lens – like the one in my home made lens hood pic.

Steve Edwards

I have a number of cameras, mainly zoom, that are missing things like lens/viewfinder hoods, CCUs, zoom/focus demands, cue lamp lenses etc – mainly EMI 2001, Philips LDK3/PC 80 & Marconi Mk7.

Always looking for these types of things if anyone can help in locating any. 

See here – http://www.tech-ops.co.uk/page103.html , bottom of the page. (Bernie Newnham)

Headphones

Nick Ware

A similar thing applied to headphones. There would always be someone who had, for whatever reason, ‘lost’ theirs. If that was you, you would simply steal someone else’s when they weren’t looking, and the overall system worked because you always had a pair when you needed it.

I remember this phenomenon being used as an example at Evesham to explain the theory of  ‘holes’ in semiconductors, where the existence of holes was essential for the movement of electrons. Massive over simplification, of course, and not entirely accurate, but it made a lot of sense to me!