P3D Stere-All film

[Tom Deering <tmd@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

Regarding the Stere-All:


Here is this newbies first impression of the Stere-All and shooting with an
antique camera.  I shot three rolls today, and the two I had processed look
great.  I can't say I'm thrilled with the entire affair in general, though.
Please don't write to say that the Stere-All is junk.  Many of my comments
would apply to a Realist.

1. Other than setting the f-stop, there are no adjustments on this camera.
In a way, that makes things easy.  But I'm accustomed to having a SLR, so
this is constrictive.

2. There's no exposure meter.  Yuk.

3. Even without a meter, I got excellent results. Based on George
Themelis's advice, I went by the exposure guide on the back, although I
must admit I have shot thousands of frames in 2D, so perhaps that helps.

4. The winder is a knob.  After three rolls, my thumbs are hamburger.  Six
hours later, they still hurt.

5. The rewinder is also a knob.  More hurt.  And if I let it go while
rewinding, it goes sproing like a window shade.

6. I can't belive how tiny the film chip is.  It has half the surface area
as a regular 2x2 slide.

7. When I get 2x2 slides back from the lab, I can view them immediatly in a
Franka viewer.  I must admit I find that strip of Realist style slides a
little daunting.  I won't get around to mounting them for a week at least.

8. The stobe synch is broken, so I can't try flash photos.  Also, the
winder goofed up on the second roll, and I couldn't shoot the remainder of
the roll.  I had to use a glove bag at a photo lab to get the film out.

9. It's nice to have a camera that is ready to shoot at a moments notice.
No setup. No fooling around. Perfectly synched.  I got some nice impromptu
shots today.

10.  It's totally cool looking.  My wife is suitable impressed.

As Eric mentioned, we bumped into each other today in Washington Square.
Small world.  I can see this Stere-All is a piece of junk in comparison to
his Realist.  It's hard to imagine I will use this camera very extensively.
The twin-rig I built is far superior to the Stere-All in every respect
except looks.  Now that I have licked the synch problem on my twin-rig, I
may simply display the Stere-All.

With no experience at all, I was able to make a very serviceable twin-rig,
with auto exposure, auto focus, auto wind, auto rewind, auto shutoff, auto
flash, and a nice self-timer.  After tying the focus, shutter and timer
buttons together, it works like a charm.

Tom




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