[photo-3d] Re: Stereo Demise-stereo caused it's own decline

[jastuart@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx]

--- In photo-3d@xxxxxxxxxxx, markaren@xxxx wrote:
> What caused the decline in stereo photography? Television of course!

TV likely played a role in the decline in photography as a whole in 
the 60's and 70's, but it can't explain the decimation of stereo
after the 50's. I think it can be safely said that, today, a majority 
of American households own some type of camera (mostly P&S) despite
TV's, PC's or the internet's popularity, yet stereo is virtually 
unknown to the public.

I think stereo caused it's own decline. 

IMO,a reasonably sized portion of the public jumped on the stereo 
bandwagon in the 50's, only to become quickly disillusioned by the
eye strain and inconvenience of stereoviewing and projection (if they 
could afford the projection package), the lack of ease (compared to
2D photography) in sharing photographs with others, and the limitation
to only transparencies. Also, manual photography was a challenge to 
most people in those days, and stereo made it all the more difficult.

Any revival of stereo to the public at large is going to be a real 
uphill stuggle. To get it started, an affordable, easy to use, 
multifeature, electronic point and shoot stereocamera needs to be 
developed at large scale by a major manufacturer that can be used for 
both transparencies and prints. That would mean simultaneous gearing 
up of mounting services to handle 100,000's of mounting orders for 
both formats. That's not to mention developing affordable slide and 
print viewers.

The only problem is that no major player (ie, Kodak) is going to do 
that due to the inherent risk of the public not catching on or
staying with the format. The average person will never embrace taking 
stereo slides; small image needing a viewer to see, slow speed film 
(needed for transparencies)is very limiting to the average P&S'er, no
patience to wait 1-2 weeks to get your order back. Print stereos
might catch on with public, but they would have to come back as full 
sized mounted pairs, which would be much more costly to do compared
to 2D. The average P&S er will never mount their own slides or prints.

The major players would have returned to stereophotography by now if 
they thought it was financially viable (and they don't). They are 
willing to jump into new formats with both feet, ie digital and ADS, 
but, right now, they still won't touch stereo, and that's too bad.

John