The camera is fairly straightforward, in that anyone familiar with video cameras should be able to work out what most of the controls do, but there are a few quirks about how the camera operates. This page summarises use of the camera, with links to other pages that go into things in more depth. Please note that these pages are mostly technical in nature.
When the camera is operated without a CCU attached to it, it will turn on in the auto-preset mode. This sets several modes at once, and disables most of the controls on the side of the camera; though the auto-iris adjustment control, and the zebra pattern indicator on/off switch, still work.
There is a button which acts as an on/off control for the auto-preset, to wrest control back to the operator. If you need to control the above things, you will have to press this button each time the camera is turned on.
And, if you weren't using auto-tracking white balance, you'll have to re-white-balance the camera (the battery-backed memory only holds settings when the camera is powered up in standby mode). Thanks to the uselessness of this battery, you may decide to leave the battery out, and modify the viewfinder interface, so that you don't have to put up with seeing “BACKUP” blinking on the viewfinder screen, all the time.
Also, you cannot make the tally light go on, unless you modify the viewfinder.
And, you cannot get line view video in the viewfinder, unless you modify the back-end, or the viewfinder.
When operated with a CCU, the auto-preset mode is permanently disabled, and some of the controls are transferred over to the CCU:
An annoying shortcoming being that not all controls are transferred to the CCU, so the cameraman is lumbered with having to control a few things that really should be done in the control room:
White balance settings are not maintained if the camera is powered off.
NB: On the camera head, in the section between the camera and where the WV-AD37 back-end plugs into, below the 32-pin connector is a +/− “run” switch. It's obvious purpose is to do with the polarity of the record-pause start/stop signal. However, it also affects the CCU operation, and needs switching up to the + position for the CCU to work. Otherwise, most of the camera head and CCU controls are disabled.
See the white balance page for more details, but here's the quick version:
The auto-tracking white balance (ATW) works by continually measuring the ambient lighting through the sensor mounted above the lens, and continually re-adjusting the white balance. It can't work if the sensor isn't there. It doesn't measure the image being filmed through the lens. And if the light falling on the sensor doesn't match the lighting falling on what you're filming, the white balance will be wrong (such as when the camera is some distance from the scene, or in the shadows). Low light levels can, also, fool the sensor.
The auto white balance control (AWC) works with the image going through the lens. You set it once, and the white balance stays fixed until you change it, again, change white balance modes, or turn the camera off. You need to aim the camera at a white object (under your filming lighting conditions), or aim the camera at your lights through a translucent white lens cap, while you press the white set button. It's “automatic” in that it sets the white balance when you press a button, rather than you having to manually adjust red and blue gain controls. It's not magic, you have to film a suitable test object for it to work, and you'll have to re-do it if the lighting conditions change.
The manual white balance controls work on top of the auto-white balance settings. As an offset to the ATW settings, or in competition with the AWC setting. You can use them to fine-tune the results of the auto-settings, or to completely manually white balance the camera. They don't have the range of control that the auto white balance does, so you may want to do an auto-white balance, first, anyway. On the CCU, they're immediately obvious as red and blue video gain control knobs; but for stand-alone camera use, they're hidden under the hinged flap on the side of the camera, with a switch to enable them.
Unlike most industrial video cameras, the F15 doesn't have manual gain controls with fixed levels of gain, it has two levels of automatic gain. While this does give you some level of control for filming under low lighting conditions, it makes it very hard to produce artistic lighting effects, as you want them to look, or to match the levels between multiple cameras. And you have auto-gain and auto-iris fighting with each other. Made worse by the original settings usually trying to over-expose the camera.
With some models of the camera, you may find it impossible to turn off the AGC. Even when the switch is set off, the camera will still turn the gain down if you film something that fills a significant portion of the screen with peak white.
The auto-iris measure the video signal, to control the lens, adjusting for an average exposure, regardless of what the correct exposure should actually be. The only way to manually control the iris, is on the lens itself: Press the unlock button on the iris ring, and rotate the ring away from the AL (auto lock), A (auto) and C (closed) positions, to the manual f stops. The lock button only engages at the A and C positions.
The iris controls on the camera head, and CCU, only adjust the auto-iris offset. This isn't the same as manual iris control. The iris will still drift more open or closed as the image changes, such as when you zoom in and out, pan around, or when someone walks through a scene.
The SES affects the electronic response of the CCD image target in the camera, it's not a mechanical shutter, as in a film camera, although it works to produce a similar effect. A high speed shutter can be used to reduce the motion blue of rapidly moving objects in the frame. This allows for much clearer slow motion replay, or freeze-frames, but will make moving objects strobe uncomfortably during normal playback speeds. And it will darken the picture, so you will have to open the iris wider, or increase the gain, to compensate. When lighting is inadequate, this will be a problem. Ordinarily, the SES is left off (switched to “normal”).
The camera has a zebra pattern (a diagonally stripey pattern over parts of the picture in the viewfinder) that is nominally set to show when the picture is close to 100% exposure. There's a user control to turn it on and off, inside the hatch on the left side of the camera. But it's a workshop adjustment to change the threshold. And, thanks to the usual bad video levels alignment of these cameras, it may not be set correctly. It should be checked against a waveform monitor before you begin to rely on it. Once you confirm that it works accurately, the cameraman can use it to avoid over-exposing a shot. Though it's still guesswork as to how to correctly expose anything that's less than white level.
The pattern shouldn't be seen unless you're filming something that should actually hit peak white, such as deliberately overexposed objects, highly reflective objects, and (perhaps) the shoulders of a white shirt, when it's brilliantly lit. The front of someone's white shirt shouldn't hit peak white, you're over-exposing if you do that, or they've leant back and are reflecting the lighting more towards the lens. You may find that reflective highlights on someone's face, such as the tops of cheekbones, may hit peak white when they're strongly lit. But, again, you're probably over-exposing. You're definitely over-exposing, if the zebra pattern appears over something that's not meant to look bright.
The F15 camera uses its own special custom lens mount, though there were adaptor accessories available to attach various other types of lens to the camera (mostly SLR type of lenses), or the camera to other devices (like microscopes and telescopes).
There is a thumbwheel hidden behind a slide off lid close to the lens, it looks like a black plastic cog. Rotating this will rack the CCD imaging device back and forth, to match the lens attached to the camera.
To aid in focussing, the peaking switch can be switched on (located on the side of the studio viewfinder). It artificially enhances the detail on the viewfinder, making it easier to see the edges of things. It can be switched on and off, as needed, it only affects the viewfinder, not the picture sent out by the camera.
The later WV-F15HS (high sensitivity) model has slightly improved specifications, it is approximately two f stops more sensitive.