Museum of the Broadcast Television Camera

EMI Emitron long necked television camera tube

EMI Emitron long necked television camera tube

The EMI long necked Emitron tube circa 1937. These tubes were of the "Iconoscope" class with the target mosaic scanned from the front. They were at the cutting edge of pre-war vacuum technology and had a short life, anything from a few hours to a few months.


It had a sensitivity of the order of 2500 Lux @ f3. The Emitron tube with its spherical glass enclosing the large target meant that the lens was a long way in front of the target and this placed constraints on the usable focal lengths and the depth of field in particular.

Long and short neck Emitron tubes, notes

There are some fine pictures of the Emitron tube at Giorgio Basile vacuum tube museum.