P3D RE: RBT tolerances

["David W. Kesner" <drdave@xxxxxxxxxx>]

I guess I should join this discussion as I have one of the few 65mm 
inter-lens spaced RBT's (mine is an X3A which is based on the 
Ricoh XR-X3PF).

I just did some measuring (using a ruler so it is not exact) and here 
is what I found:

The film gate size is 32.5mm. In order to achieve this RBT had to 
reduce the 36mm of the original camera. They reduced the inner 
edges by 2.5mm and the outer edges by 1.0mm. This means that 
they do set an in-camera window (at least in this model).

There is 34.5mm between the reduced film gates. So the total from 
the left edge of the left gate to the right edge of the right gate is 
99.5mm.

I don't have an uncut roll right now for exact measurements, but what 
I get is the first two image frames touch, then about a 1mm space, 
then the next two image frames touch, then a large gap (?10mm), 
and then the whole sequence repeats. I get 20 pairs from a 36 
exposure roll.

There are definitely slight variances in this (from actually touching to 
a very slight space <0.5mm), but it is no more than any other 
camera I have owned (both stereo and mono).

That's all for now,

David W. Kesner
Boise, Idaho, USA
drdave@xxxxxxxxxx