P3D NSA recap

[John Fairstein <jfairstein@xxxxxxx>]

As a new member, this was my first convention but it certainly won't be
my last. After arriving Thursday I attended the P3D meeting led by Dan
Shelley. Everyone stood up and introduced themselves (it is amazing how
far off my mental images of P3Ders were when confronted with the real
humans), then Dan went over the basics for new folks about how to join
and navigate the list. Next he gave a presentation of the 3D CD which
revealed new treasures hidden on the disc. Now that he has closed out
production per his agreement with those of us who contributed, I
certainly hope he will develop a new commercial product. There were
hints that he an Bill Walton are collaborating...

Room hopping Thursday evening was a new experience. Bedspread after
bedspread covered with cards, cameras, viewers, and gadgets unknown.
Almost like a middle eastern bazaar in the Marriott. Maybe I'll offer
Turkish coffee and baklava from my room in Green Bay.

The shows I saw Friday in the Stereo Theater blew my mind. Boris
Starosta's Technobot slides and the Koehler's anamorphic widescreen
slides were outstanding. I wonder if I can find some used Panavision
lenses... Later John Baird showed some wonderful images with fantastic
swirls of color in his Light Painting show.

Unfortunately I missed Robert Bloomberg's Tuscany while I was at Alfred
Hitchock's "Dial M for Murder" Friday afternoon.  (The Byrd Theater is
remarkably like the Bijou here in Knoxville -- complete with organ). But
what a thriller! After the showing, the projectionist graciously allowed
us to visit the booth to see the "business end" of the projector. He
said that before renting the film, the distributor provided a lengthy
questionnaire to determine the Byrd's projection configuration. They
then sent him a beam splitter attachment and an anamorphic projection
lens with instructions not to clean the mirrors unless absolutely
necessary.  The images were side-by-side on the film in squeezed
anamorphic format. When "unsqueezed they displayed on the screen in an
almost square format. The projectionist mentioned that he distributor
can also provide a split anamorphic lens. Here the optical elements are
split down the center in a miracle of fabrication. I suppose the
advantage is the elimination of the beamsplitter and mirrors which can
introduce flare in the image. He pointed out that the
projector-to-screen distance must fall within some critical limits or
the lens could not be used, as was the case at the Byrd.

Saturday morning Jon Golden, Ron Labbe, and another fellow (his name
escapes me) put on a good demonstration of stereo mounting including
some clever pseudoscopic flips. They emphasized that getting the pseudo
mounted slides to work requires inverting them so that shadows appear at
the bottom of objects. This helps the eye-brain to process the image.
Jon went on to show the effects of horizontal alignment on the window
which cleared up some of the mystery for me. He cautioned against
getting obsessed with too many mounting rules. He also pointed out that
there are a number of masks now available with different aperture sizes
to crop images to eliminate window problems. The other fellow made
mounting look easy by showing how to use the RBT as a guide with Spicer
cardboard mounts. He pointed out that Spicer mounts sandwiched with a
single piece of glass in an EMDE frame are excellent for projection. He
also showed how to pop out the apertures from the back to get nice clean
edges.

Highlights of the Trade Show on Saturday were meeting Boris Starosta at
his booth and introducing him to my holographer friend Steve Provence of
Blue Ridge Holographics in Charlottesville. I swapped a stereo portrait
of be-suited Boris for one of his spaceship pairs. Next I visited by my
friend Michael Kaplan's booth where he showed his outstanding new Frank
Lloyd Wright reel. The packaging is very well designed: a plastic jewel
box holds a little booklet which in turn hold the reels in die cut
slots. Michael is Professor Emeritus of Architecture at the University
of Tennessee. Not only is he a fountain of knowledge about architecture,
but also an excellent photographer. Ron Speicher showed me some nifty
used light meters which attached to the hotshoe on the Realist and other
cameras.

Then to George Themelis booth covered with viewers, AC adapters,
cameras, books, catalogs, etc. You may not know it, but George has a web
site! I created a site for him in exchange for some mounting of my
stereo slides. We are still working on the project, but hopefully you'll
see his site it soon with an online catalog. By the afternoon George's
table was clear, evrything sold. A step next door to Jon Golden's booth
revealed shiny new RBT cameras and a variety of fabulous viewers. These
viewers provide the clearest sharpest images I have ever seen. Also
available were my new Anaglyph clip-on glasses made from RBT frames. Jon
showed me the fabulous S1. This very high quality camera is a marvel of
automation, and with my style of shooting, the 59mm lens spacing will be
ideal (someday...). Jon's style is so impressive -- he answered every
question put to him about stereo photography and spent plenty of time
with each visitor demonstrating the variety of equipment on display.
Here I also met Dave Klutho, the Sports Illustrated photographer who
shoots Super Slides with a pair of Hasselblads. Across the aisle Dalia's
team demoed the Nu-View 3D TV system for virtually any camcorder.

Saturday afternoon I saw Ron Labbe's and Jon Golden's outstanding "The
Third Dimension". This show is a 'must see' for anyone in 3D. The
amateur shots of families and kids in the fifties and sixties evoked
quite a bit of emotion in me -- be sure to bring a handkerchief.

Saturday evening I listened to the curator of the Smithsonian's 3D
collection review their collection. Unfortunately the slides were not in
3D, but interesting nonetheless. I came away puzzled why there are
separate Holmes, George Eastman House, and Smithsonian collections. Why
not combine them or at least rotate them to provide greater public
access and enjoy economies of scale in maintenance and cataloging.

Sunday morning's showing of the Wing/Brackett 3D videos by Ron Labbe was
great. I felt 'right there'. Jon Golden displayed the new color
vectographs produced with ink jet polarizing inks using an overhead
projector. This may be the hassle-free stereo we all dream about.
Imagine large backlit prints in your living room! Later I talked  with
Paul Wing about his antique tri-color viewer which combined 3 BW images,
each shot with a different color filter, to produce a full color image.
Amazingly, the red image was reflected off the green filter in the
viewer.

Finally I headed back home,  once again missing the afternoon showing of
Tuscany. I hope Bob Bloomberg will show it again in Green Bay.

On the way home I kept thinking I wish there were more young people
involved in NSA. College age art and photography students and high
school students would really get a kick out of the images I saw in
Richmond.

As a side note, I drove up through the magnificent Tennessee and
Virginia countryside which parallels the Appalachians, camping overnight
Wednesday in Marion, Virginia at the Hungry Mother State Park. I highly
recommend this Park for travelers on I-81 -- it even has a beach with
sand! All along I-81 are opportunities to hop onto the Blue Ridge
Parkway. The Parkway is an American treasure with spectacular views of
mountains, valleys, and broad green plains suitable for long base stereo
photography.


John Fairstein


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