[photo-3d] The jig's up

["Kenneth Luker" <kluker@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

From: "Kenneth Luker" <kluker@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>

Mounting with a jig saves time and ensures a uniformly 
aligned product.  But I don't use one, and here's why:  

I don't use a level with my Realist, and I've found that my 
eye for level is frustratingly inaccurate, which is as hard 
for me to admit as it is for most people to agree with the 
charge that they have no sense of humor.  

Therefore, I find that there was too often a slight tilt to my 
camera when I clicked.  If I were to use a jig to mount 
those un-level shots, the bottoms of the chips would be 
even with each other, and the tilt of the camera would be 
replicated in the mounted slides.  But by forgoing the jig 
and using a mounting gauge instead, I can rotate the first 
chip to give a true level, and then use the horizontal lines 
of the transparent gauge to guide the rotational position of 
the second chip to match the first.  Of course I must be 
looking at the slide through lenses while mounting to 
ensure the matched rotation and to set the window.  

In the final product, the bottom edges of the chips are 
parallel but are not on the same line.  The top and bottom 
edges of the window can be made to appear congruent for 
the pair, and the ever-so-slight vertical disparity caused by 
this fudging is virtually invisible--certainly not as 
distressing as the tilt of a jig-mounted pair would be.  
(RBT mounts also hard-wire the tilt of the camera, unless 
you throw away the mounting pins and with them much of 
the virtue of the RBT in the first place.)

My opinion.  (By the way, there is an obvious objection to 
my argument:  If my eye can't tell exact level in the field, 
how can I expect to do the rotation right while mounting?  
I dunno, but it seems to work.  Maybe it's because the 
alignment gauge makes any tilt so obvious.)

Ken Luker

_______________________________________________________________
Kenneth Luker
Marriott Library Administration
KLUKER@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

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