Re: The rise and demise of 3D

[egoldste@xxxxxxxxxx (Eric Goldstein)]

At 12:43 PM 1/25/96, Eric Drysdale wrote:
>several times why this format disappeared.  People actually seemed angry
>about it!  I had no good answer.  Is there one?


Add one more bit of speculation to the discussion...


I suspect a lot of it had to do with the difficulties in obtaining prints
and dupes.

About the same time 3-D wained in the public eye, the use of slide film
also dropped as the affordability, speed, and ease with which color prints
could be made increased significantly for the general public. The public
wanted to be able to view a reasonably sized paper print, to put it in an
album, to put it in a frame, to get dups for grandma. This is all much more
difficult/expensive with the use of chromes and "non-standard" formats (the
"half frame" 35 mm began to suffer the same fate at about the same time, as
did 127 "super slides", 16mm for stills, etc).

As was discussed recently, the general public likes cheap prints and
duplicate prints in all sizes and shapes. (Attend a Sears family photo
special if you don't believe me). As they became more readily
available/affordable with a standard 24 x 36 mm film negative than with
other formats, the use of other formats and films dwindled, and all kinds
of slide formats, stereo and plano, began to fall out of favour with the
average family photographer...

Eric G.
egoldste@xxxxxx









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