Interocular&focus necessary?

[P3D Dan Keen <70731.722@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Howdy all,

Have a question about how necessary are features like focus and interocular
adjustments are on stereo slide viewers?

Never much into photography, but have had stereo Realist 45 camera and a Realist
format viewer since a kid, since before can remember. Actually the viewer is a
Wollensak 11, which does have focus knob and interocular lever. With this setup
homemade slides look fine, real good image.

But surfing the WWW, stumbled across 3D pages and learned that in other formats
there are lots of commercial slides available, formats like ViewMaster,
True-Vue, 3Discover. But not very much in Realist format.

Well I like old things, muzzleloading guns, radios which glow in the dark (i.e.
tubes not transistors), oldtimer steam model trains (not diesels). So the
True-Vue looks interesting because the views listed are from the 30's and 40's.
Probably would be able to see great old models of cars parked in the background
of scenic views (and clothes/hairdos, etc).

However am wondering if I need features that True-Vue viewers probably don't
have; going around in daily life things look better through eye-glasses (far
sighted) and on the Wollensak I do swing the interocular off center, eyes not
being standard width either. Truth is don't know much about how much difference
focus and interocular adjustments make, never had a ViewMaster as a kid, only
that there old Wollensak. Don't know if should spend some money 'cause hardware
made to standard focus and eye width might not work for everybody, then again
maybe just about anyone can get a pretty good look through ViewMasters and
True-Vues?

Dan


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