I got my hands on a old Sony FCB-EX1000P color block camera. It has composite and s-video output and supports VISCA for communication. I've been able to build a rough arduino program to send and receive commands from the camera.

I've also been able to take video from the camera, however very, very dim. The OSD I control with the arduino outputs from the same circuit and has normal colors. No matter how much I turn up the gain/aperture/shutter time it simply will not pass a dim gray color.

I have tried the interal ADC of a TV, an external av2hdmi converter and a real analog tv, but i can not get a bright picture from the camera.

When the camera is booting up it displays a bright vibrant blue color for a few seconds which on the oscilloscope looks like this:

After the bootup sequence however the p-p voltage is lower and even the most overexposed white light is dim gray. this is with a full open aperture, max gain and 1s shutter time.

My question then: why is this happening. is the camera damaged or am I missing something. Do I need an signal amplifier?

Any help is appreciated and I will provide any data if I can