Old camcorder with dual lenses??? anyone remember

[Matthew Romanis]

I remember a thing called the “Duo-Cam” from Samsung. It had a lens for the video CCD above a lens for the stills CCD.
My old Super 8 film camera has a 3 lens barrel that rotates. Very retro.

[Scott Bush]

Nah, Matthew, I remember that Samsung thing, too – was actually fairly recent. The one I’m talking about would have been older than that early or mid 90s – I doubt it even took stills – and would have been pre-digital. BOTH lenses were for video.

[Matthew Romanis]

Found this one
https://www.labguysworld.com/Museum008_025.htm

[Matthew Romanis]

I think I remember something from when I was a kid. My father bought his 1st video camera in 1984 which was a JVC camera head that looked like a Super 8 camera, but had a VHS portapack recorder (I had to carry it and there wasn’t much “Portable” about it!!).
I can remember another version of the camera that had two lens’s on a rotating barrel, I think one was a mid range zoom, the other a longer range zoom.

[Scott Bush]

Heh, no not that either – not THAT old. It didn’t rotate – you could switch between them on the fly, while recording – dissolve or cut between them. One was fixed, wide – the other a zoom lens. Was a camcorder – no shoulder pack or anything needed.

Thanks for the link, though. Pretty cool.

[Andrew Haley]

When I was in High-School (88-92) the head of the Math Dept had one of these. He had a small businees creating math teaching videos, and there were a couple times he taped a musical or two with it (I was in the Choir). I was just at the begining of my interest in video and film production, and for the life of me, can’t remember any specifics of the camera, and I remember the results were realitivly poor, with problems lineing up the shots between the two lenses ect. All that said… the end result was better than many other single camera jobs I’d seen.

So to answer your question, yes I remember/saw one of those, but as far as a make and model…. sorry, don’t know, although for some reason I want to guess Panasonic…

–Andrew

[Scott Bush]

Cool! I was starting to wonder if I’d dreamed it! I remember when I was trying to buy my first camera (consumer level) I had my eye on it – but was convinced otherwise after a demo, mostly because of picture quality. It was at the end of its run and much better lenses and CCDs were available in smaller packages and I went with a hi-8 — but I remember being very intrigued by the possibilities. It wasn’t so easy to create a dissolve with consumer equipment in those days, especially not without significant quality loss. Thanks for responding!

Scott

[Eugene Kang]

A friend gave one to me a long time ago… I remember seeing it in shops when I was a kid too… it was really expensive then.

From memory it was a Sharp model, had a spring-loaded lenscap that was attached to the body, and the first (or one of the first) color LCD viewfinders (with pretty awful resolution). It also recorded audio in stereo, and had RCA outputs on the side underneath a flap. One lens was wide, one was zoom. It wasn’t a shoulder-mount camera though, it was a handycam-style camera.

This is the only photo I can find of it… is it the one you had in mind?

https://www.moma.org/interactives/exhibitions/1995/mutantmaterials/plasticgifs/16sakata.gif

[Scott Bush]

Wow eugene! That may be it… I still remember a larger version of it, but that’s the right idea and the lens mount is totally right, so maybe my mind is just playing tricks on me. I ended up buying an 8mm camera after they compared the picture quality side by side in the store, so it was definitely during the handycam era – but it also wasn’t any more expensive than the one I bought, so it may have been an older model. Either way, that’s definitely the same lens system! How did you find that picture? I’ve been searching for ages! Thanks!!!!

[Eugene Kang]

It took a bit of browsing through google images. 🙂

If I didn’t throw it out a few years ago, I would be able to give you the model number and some clearer photos!

I don’t remember other cameras with two lenses, but I never looked around and I was really young at that time too. That one just stood out because it had two lens barrels. It was either Video8 or Hi8.
I remember the wide angle sensor being pretty soft and crappy.

Kodak’s V570 reminded me of it… 23mm in a compact is pretty cool!