Re: [photo-3d] Nismlo as regular stereo

[Robert Thorpe <thorpe@xxxxxxxx>]

Bob,

What you are asking about is how I have been doing my
APEC views lately. There are a couple of things. Right
now, I have my chips printed regularly at a local lab.
These labs change their equipment frequently and what
works one day may change in the near future. At one
time I had a look at the film holder in their processor
and made a little plastic insert for them that was just
the right size for a Nimslo neg. It had the advantage 
of isolating the left and right images from the preceding
and subsequent frames and helped amazingly with the 
color balance. But since there is no half-frame setting
for exposure, the sensor metered on the whole 35mm
slide and could be off quite a bit. Luckily, they could
manually control exposure somewhat, and if I watched 
them carefully, they usually got properly exposed prints.
All that changed when they changed machines. Now I have
to get my chips with half of the previous and subsequent
frames printed with the chip I want. This has led to 
the color balance being off from time to time, but usually
it's not too bad. I have as much trouble getting them
to focus it properly in the first place.

When I get my prints, I scan them on a regular scanner
at a high enough resolution to allow me to crop them some
and still have enough pixels for the final monolithic
pair to be 1000x1500 pixels on a 4x6 print. I trim off 
the top and bottom 3/8 inch or so and I have a single 
chip to fix to my card. It works pretty well.

The problem with the Fuji 370 is that you probably won't
want to rescan your prints. You could get possible moires
this way. So you will have to mount the left and right
halves by hand with all the opportunity for rotational
and other alignment errors. Photoshop is great for fixing
these kinds of problems, but you will want your scans
from analog prints. The other way is to get your negs
or slides scanned and manipulate these digital images
in photoshop. The kicker here is that I haven't found
a lab yet that will give you high-res scans for free as
part of having your film processed, or even give them 
to you reasonably. When I get regular analog photos and
scan them myself, it is invariably cheaper than even
the digital prints themselves cost, not to mention what
you pay extra for the high-res scans. Those photographers
who live in an area where 4x6 prints from the Fuji 370 
are available for 35 cents are indeed lucky. I have to
drive 30 miles to find one and they charge $10 for an
8x10 as their cheapest print.

======================
Robert Thorpe
Cedar Rapids, IA
thorpe@xxxxxxxx
http://www.skep.com