I know I said, just yesterday, that I wasn’t going to buy any more old cameras, but 1. The Sony HVR-200 isn’t a camera, and 2. I ordered it a week ago; it just arrived today. If there’s a three, I guess it’s that I fucking love it!

So, What Is A SONY HVR-200 Anyway?

Glad you asked. It’s a very simple mechanism that can either sit on a flat surface or be mounted to a tripod. Two motors allow it to rotate horizontally, 360º, and vertically up and down. You can’t go 360º vertically, not that you’d want to, but I was disappointed at its limited tilt range.

Both axes are controlled with a remote. The remote lets you adjust the speed for the pan function and set it up to pan automatically. Like I said, it’s a very simple mechanism, but it’s very well built and durable.

I had no idea such a thing existed until that night last week, when I was scrolling through eBay looking for old cameras. In the results for an HVC-2800, I came across this Sony HVR-200. It was listed for $50, but I couldn’t justify spending another $50 after having just purchased two old video cameras, half of which were broken, but I kept my eye on it.

There was another one listed on eBay as well, but they wanted like $250 for it. People think that just because something is old, it’s worth a lot of money. I didn’t even want to pay $50 for one, so I didn’t give the more expensive listing a second glance.

It’s A Rare Find Indeed

I wanted to find out more about the HVR-200, so I did a search and found hardly anything, but I did find a video about it. Just one. This guy was doing some maintenance on one, and he explained that he bought it new back in the 80s when he was a videographer.

He said he bought it because sometimes he would do weddings in a church and not be allowed to stand by the camera, so he bought the HVR-200 so he could sit down and control the pan and tilt. He also had a remote for the camera, so he could start and stop recording and zoom in and out.

Seeing this video and watching how easy it was to fix the loose belts, I was sold. I went straight back to eBay and bought it. I don’t know why this stupid little thing excites me so much, but it does. And I know they have high-tech ones that will pan, tilt, and slide, and you can program them to repeat the same movements over and over, but they’re not $50, and they don’t have that cool, 80s, retro mojo either.

Now, maybe if I can stop buying old cameras and accessories for a minute, I can actually use them to make some videos. 🤪