Re: Stereo's Future

[P3D John Ohrt <johrt@xxxxxxx>]

P3D Gregory J. Wageman wrote:

> A '50s
> stereo camera *in good adjustment* is perfectly capable of taking a nice
> sharp picture.  See how well your SLR's do after 45+ years of use, abuse
> and storage without maintenence (the condition a lot of '50s stereos are
> in), and you will really come to appreciate the ruggedness of the Realist
> and Revere cameras.  And no batteries to replace, ever!

Let's mellow out a little.

First, the quality of a top of the line rangefinder breed, like a Leica was
superior in 1950 to a Realist.  Even today a lot of cameras still don't use
batteries.

Even in those days, the stereo cameras did not get the best technology because
of the expense.

That is still true today, even for the merged cameras built by hackers with
great care and sometimes great expense.  Great improvemnt, but not matching our
technical capability.

What we really need is more demand and a greater portion of the market.

I think we may get it if we are lucky.

I have already been part of a team to build a dual lens, single CCD camera.
Aligning the CCD to the optics in a simple consumer camera to subpixel accuracy
is trivial relative to aligning optical elements.  Readingout the CCD uses
conventional technology.  True the overall product won't be as cheap as a
single lens counterpart and nor will it have the same resolution.  But
megapixel technology is already under $1K.  While 640x480 is not as nice as
megapixel technology, it already has found commercial applications.  So
basically all the technology is there to make a 640x480 dualframe camera if not
now, next year and sell it for under $1K IF the volume existed.

I feel that a 3D camera with no processing for image alignment will also find
much readier consumer use as well as commercial use.  First they have to learn
that it is cheap, painless and awesome.

That is one of the things I have learned from this group.  You can get away
with inexpensive hardware and still get nice results.  Not for every situation
and not under every condition.  But that equipment doesn't exist for any class
of photography.

Even Ansel Adams always carried a second camera, even if only a simple 35 mm
rangefinder.

Regards,

--

John Ohrt * Toronto * ON * Canada




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