Re: [photo-3d] Congratulations on your twins!

[Gabriel Jacob <jacob@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Jim Harp writes:

>Congratulations on the successful surgery!

Thanks, but I'm not out of the woods yet! I took a test roll
today and ran into some very minor problems, but still was okay.

>How long did it take?

Not too long actually! The longest part was the planning , buying
parts that I thought I might use, and looking for my tools and other
parts scattered around the basement.

The actual operation took about one hour. It will take much less
time the second time around, now that I know what I'm doing!

>I also have the Watters book and am planning on trying the
>same thing.

Don't worry, Watters book explains it very well. The pictures
could be a bit clearer but Mike's text makes up for it. Only
part I got mixed up with is looking for a "spring" to remove
(that is taken out of the slave camera). The spring in question
is not really a wire wound spring but a small piece of metal.

>Did you also build the twin bar from the book?

As nice as it is, no I plan to buy some L shaped aluminum
tomorrow and use that.

>I'm interested in twinning the XA-2s because of the spectacular
>cards Dan Shelley and others keep submitting to APEC taken on
>that rig.

I agree, great pics! The camera also has very good lenses and is
well suited for 3-D. The XA and XA-2 are highly regarded among
3-D circles, so I thought I'd be in good company! 

>What wiring did you use to connect the cameras?

That was the hardest part. I couldn't decide on what type of
jacks and plugs to use. Watter's "wireless" version was very
tempting and ingenious but was too much work for me. So I took
the path of least resistance. :-)

I finally didn't use any of the different sized jacks/plugs. I
used instead some tiny sized female/male connector pins I had
lying around. With these, I didn't have to modify the casing
at all! Only modification was to the internal wiring.

The cameras need two wires to be connected between them. The first
connection was made by inserting the female pin on the back of
the camera case, where the camera screw was. Inside the camera,
a wire was to the pin and the green colored shutter wire.

I plan to use use Watter's idea of the twin bar for the other
connection! The metallic batter covers serve to make contact
with the twin bar. At the moment I inserted another wire into
the battery cover tiny hole and screwed it in.

>I've had good results using standard phone jacks to twin my Ricoh
>XR-10Ms, so I was thinking of trying the same thing with the XA-2s.

If you connect them externally, there won't be a problem, but
internally it will be very difficult.

>I'll also be interested to hear if you find the auto-exposures
>match on the two cameras. Perhaps if the cameras don't match some
>ND filters over the sensor of the under-exposing one could help
>compensate.

I don't think that will be much of a problem but then again I only
tested it with a roll of print film. Even in the worst case that they
match well for slides, one could compensate by adjust the ASA settings
on the cameras. No need for ND filters.

P.S. I've uploaded some pics to illustrate what I've done. Check out,
http://www.egroups.com/files/photo-3d/xa.jpg
http://www.egroups.com/files/photo-3d/xaclose.jpg

Good luck Jim, let us know how it goes, when you decide to take the
p
  l
   u
    g
    e
    !

Gabriel :-)