Found camera in some dusty second hand store - what is it?

[Gibush]

Ahoy!
I've never been on this forum before, and I'm definitely not an accomplished photographer. However I've been kinda looking for a decent camera of some sort. I'm more interested in videos than pictures. But that's beside the point -

I seem to have discovered an old camera in a second hand store around here. It's called the Sony Trinicon HVC 2800. I looked it up, and it's something called a tube camera. I think it's from the 70's or 80's. I got super excited but then looked up some footage taken with it on youtube, and it's pretty blurry and crappy.

But I'm still interested in it, because it looks so cool. It's got an "external shotgun mic" on it that can "zoom" which sounds pretty badass.

Here's an eBay listing of it: VINTAGE SONY TRINICON HVC-2800 VIDEO CAMERA & CASE | eBay

That person doesn't seem to know anything about it.

And here's a link to a description of it:

Description Sony HVC-2800

Argh, for some reason copying that link made my text italic and I can't undo it.

It being on a site called Mr. Betamax seems to indicate that it uses betamax tapes. I guess that would make it kinda useless for me seeing as you would need a betamax player right? And I have no idea how you'd convert the footage or anything.

Anyway, is it collectable or anything? It's marked at $75 but everything in the store is 30% off because they're selling out, and I'm pretty sure I could go way lower on it and she'd give it to me. It's been there forever and has never sold. It's way way in the back. It's got the original metal box and it's like 30 pounds.

As you can probably tell, I know nothing about cameras. Thanks for any help you can give me.

James

 

[bazooka]

I can't imagine ever using it for any practical application, but if you're a collector, it'd be 'kinda' neat to have on the shelf.... I guess. It was apparently a prosumer grade camera in the mid 80's.

 

[Gibush]

Prosumer? Like a consumer that knows his stuff?

So basically, in the 80's, is this what you'd lug along to take videos of your family gathering or a concert or something? It seems pretty heavy.

Anyway, I'm not a collector... would it be worth anything, do you think? I'm not sure where I'd sell it, and I'm in Canada, so shipping would be bad, but... yeah.