P3D Re: The Practical Stereo Camera

[erker@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx (Greg Erker)]

Sam Smith wrote:
>I .     QUALITY  OF OPTICS
>2.      A RELIABLE SHUTTER
>3.      A FORMAT TO SUITE YOUR NEEDS

  I'd like to separate (my) cameras into
snapshot cameras and serious cameras. You
may well disagree with my reasoning.

---
  For snapshots I use my Realist. Often I
am shooting indoors with flash. Usually I
am taking photos of my kids who don't hold
still for very long. The Realist has a good
viewfinder and rangefinder so it is easy to
focus and frame the shot.

  The separate shutter cocking and no
thumb advance make the Realist less than
ideal for snap shooting.

  My ideal camera would be a Realist with
a thumb film advance that also cocks the
shutter. Autofocus would be nice for indoor
shooting if it focused quickly (like a good AF
SLR) and didn't cause excessive delays before
tripping the shutter (like many P&S cameras
do).

  For outdoor shooting the AF should be
switchable to a hyperfocal mode to avoid
the problems George mentioned.

  And since we're dreaming, it should have
Canon's IS (Image Stabilizer) technology
so I can get sharp handheld photos at 1/15 :)

---
  The serious camera is the one you always
use on a tripod with a cable release. So
autofocus and quick film advance aren't a
big deal.

  My present "serious" camera is a medium format
Sputnik. It makes a terrible snapshot camera
because the viewfinder is awful making
it hard to frame the shot and hard to focus
quickly. But for scenics where you can take
your time it works quite well.

  The lenses on Sputniks are variable quality.
But mine is quite good at f16 and f22.
Unfortunately the shutter speeds are limited
to 1/10 to 1/100 (which is actually 1/60 on
mine) plus B, so it is often hard to get the
f-stop you want given the lighting and those
limited speeds.

  I am presently building a better MF stereo
camera from two Ricohmatic 225 twin lens
cameras. They have a very good 4 element
Tessar style lens. More importantly the shutters
go from 1 second to 1/500 plus B which will
let me shoot at the aperture I want.

  The camera has crank advance which also
cocks the shutter and the viewfinder is much
better than the Sputnik for focusing and
framing so it may work quite well for
people snapshooting too. We shall see.

  After I have the bodies siamesed together
and focusing and film advance linked Sam
will be linking the shutters for me. So
it will act like a true stereo camera, not
just twin cameras you try to fire simultaneously.

---

  So my point is, that you have to define
what you want to use the camera for before
you know what features are most important.
Sam's 3 points are probably the top 3 but
the other features vary with intended use.

Greg E.



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