P3D Re: A cheapo stereo project

[Brian Reynolds <reynolds@xxxxxxxxx>]

Trent wrote:
> 
> Just for yuks I recently bought a Russian Lubitel 166, considered by
> most a "toy" camera.  Despite its all-plastic body and cheesy metal
> settings, it purportedly has reasonably sharp optics (Coated,
> three-element, 75mm, f4.5.  I haven't finished my test roll yet).
> It seems like a dremel tool would go through this thing like butter.
> My question, then, is this: has anyone ever tried twinning a couple
> of Lubitels, ala Sam Smith or Roger Lewis?  I would think that the
> result would be at least equal in quality to a Sputnik (especially
> given the Sputnik's tendency towards light leaks, internal
> reflection, etc.) for about 1/3 the price of the Sputniks I've
> eyed. (My Lubitel was only $40.)  Seems a perfect, ultra cheap way
> to get into medium format stereo for someone who likes to tinker.
> Any comments?
> 

I've been using a pair of Lubitels on a flash bracket for about a year
and a half now.  I've gotten very good results from these cameras.
You can see some of my stereo images on my web page.  The original
images look better than the web versions.  I've only recently gotten a
(somewhat) decent scanner and software.  When I get around to it I
plan on replacing all the stereo images with anaglyphs, although I
might also have parallel pairs.

At one point I had considered siamesing(sp?) the Lubitels, but I don't
really think the cameras are up to it.  The plastic seems pretty
flimsy.  The part that is most troublesome (at least to me) is
figuring out how to get the two take up spools to turn together.  If
you remove the film winding knob on the left camera and the film pin
on the right camera and replace them with a single shaft after gluing
the sides of the camera together I don't think you'll have enough room
inside the cameras to insert and remove film spools.  The Yashica-Mat
124G I have seems to have a wider film chamber so that you don't have
to pull out the pins on both sides of the film spool.  You'd also have
to remove the flash bracket on the right camera and the strap lugs.
Perhaps one (radical) way to deal with this is to cut the entire left
side off the right camera, and the right side off the left camera, and
join the bodies together.  A brass plate could be inserted between the
spools before loading them into the camera.  The film winding konb on
the right side would turn both spools.

-- 
Brian Reynolds                  | "Humans explore the Universe with five
reynolds@xxxxxxxxx              |   senses and call the adventure science."
http://www.panix.com/~reynolds/ | - Edwin P. Hubble


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