Re: [photo-3d] MF vs. 35mm stereo

[Brian Reynolds <reynolds@xxxxxxxxx>]

Jay W. McGuire wrote:
> Brian wrote:
> > There are several new MF stereo cameras.  They tend to be expensive.
> > I haven't bothered comparing their price to that of the RBTs.
> 
> Can you point me to them?
> 

There are at least three that I can think of off the top of my head.
Two are from Europe and one is from Japan.

The European cameras are from Alpa <URL:http://www.alpa.ch/> and Gilde
<URL:http://gilde-kamera.de/>.  These are basically 6x12 cameras with
a stereo lensboard and septum.  I don't see the stereo version of the
Alpa on their web page.  I think you can find more information
(especially about the Gilde cameras) in the photo-3d archives.  By the
way, since these cameras are using Large Format lenses it wouldn't be
such a big step up to LF stereo once you have one of these cameras.

The Japanese camera has been discussed in the MF3D mailing list.  I
think there might even be more than one of them.

These are all basically hand built cameras and I think they are
probably produced in lower numbers than the RBTs.  Personally I'd like
to see RBT build MF stereo cameras, but I think they probably have as
much work as they want building their 35mm cameras.

As an aside, I recently bought a new Canham DLC45 camera.  This is a
metal hybrid (monorail/folding flat bed) 4x5 camera.  Keith Canham
also makes a metal 5x7 camera (the MQC57) and is working on a
motorized 6x17 roll film back for it.  The film advance mechanism is
controlled by a microprocessor (cheaper than designing and building a
manual film advance).  If you connect the shutter's flash sync to the
roll film back it will automatically advance the film after the
shutter fires (based on a 2 second delay, so the shutter time must be
less than 2 seconds).  I held the prototype last November at the Photo
East Plus trade show.  Rumor has it the back will cost $1000-1200.
Once the 6x17 back is done it would be interesting to think about a
modified version (a 6x12 mask and new software) as the basis of a MF
stereo camera.

-- 
Brian Reynolds                  | "Dee Dee!  Don't touch that button!"
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