Black and White and Colour Cameras

[Eternal_Freedom]

I was watching old Doctor Who stories last night and it got me wondering. If you are using either wetfilm still cameras or video cameras recording onto film, do you need anything different for filming black/white and colour, other than appropriate film?

To phrase it differently, is there any difference between a black/white film camera and a colour film camera?

[Starglider]

To phrase it differently, is there any difference between a black/white film camera and a colour film camera?

No. However colour film (particularly early colour film) tends to be more demanding on the lens system, because it has lower sensitivity (requiring wider appeture which reduces depth of field), and may show chromatic abberation artifacts that weren't obvious when shooting monochrome.

[Eternal_Freedom]

Hmm, so my gut feeling was right. Good to know. Thanks!

[Broomstick]

I feel so old....

Old style film cameras used either type of film, your b&w vs. color choice was dependent on the film, not the camera.

And if I recall the late stone age correctly, we didn't call "wet film" cameras "video cameras", we called them "film cameras", "movie cameras", or something similar. "Video cameras" prior to the advent of digital media shot onto a brownish tape, not film where you could see individual still pictures. With video cameras whether you could shoot b&w or color depended on the camera, not the tape.

Of course, these days the freakin' telephones are cameras. Once in awhile it boggles my mind.

[aerius]

Unless it's earlier films such as The Wizard of Oz which were filmed in Technicolor, the film was the only difference between black & white and colour movies.

Technicolor required a different camera since back in those days they didn't have colour films as we know them now. Instead of recording all the colours at once on a single strip of film which is what modern films do, Technicolor split the image into red, green, and blue and recorded each colour on a separate strip of film. These strips were processed separately then brought together and used to print a colour master, I'm not entirely sure how they did it since it's been a while since I've seen the documentary. But you could probably look it up on the 'net if you're interested.

Early colour photography had something similar to the Technicolour process as well, they used RGB colour filters to shoot each colour seperately and then brought them together after developing the film. But that's late 19th, early 20th century stuff, we've had regular colour film since the 1930s when Kodachrome was introduced.

[PeZook]

Technicolor required a different camera since back in those days they didn't have colour films as we know them now. Instead of recording all the colours at once on a single strip of film which is what modern films do, Technicolor split the image into red, green, and blue and recorded each colour on a separate strip of film. These strips were processed separately then brought together and used to print a colour master, I'm not entirely sure how they did it since it's been a while since I've seen the documentary. But you could probably look it up on the 'net if you're interested.

Actually in space exploration they often do it like this as well, except they use a single digital matrix and a set of different filters, combining the results back on Earth. Just another way the digital revolution improved everything