T3D Twin Nikons

[John Toeppen <toeppen@xxxxxxxx>]

 I have a pair of Nikon 750s on a twin bar at work.  The cameras only
shoot 8 bit deep color but produce 1600 by 1200 images.  If the subject
has detail throughout the field the resolution almost makes up for the
lack of color depth.  Solid fields, like white walls, show distinct
bandings of where gradients should exist.

I chose these $550 @ cameras over the 950s because  of cost, and my
thought that zoom is not always easy to use on a twin rig.  I can say
that the 1/4-20 threaded mounts are flimsy and additional support is
required for reasonable rigidity.  Manual sysnc is suitable for most
willing subject and for modest movement.  Since the memory cards are
accessed through the bottom of the camera this is a bit of a pain. 
Download via RS232 is very slow but it does have onboard preview on the
LCD screen and a NTSC output at 640 x 480.  

The included "Hot Shots" software takes all your bmps and jpgs and calls
them Hot Shots.  Windows ceases to display these file types at all.  The
uninstall is manual. I suppose if you ran no other imaging software it
my be OK.  But to my system it was a virus.  Customer support was
marginal.

All Nikon slamming aside, the ability to do high resolution digital
stereo of 8 pairs in a few hours is pretty nice.  I use DepthCharge
Developer Studio to mux. If I had it to do today the Toshibas look
interesting.  Progressive framing video may be the best choice for
direct digital. I will try some of that if I ever get my Canopus cards
to work properly.  Sometimes I feel like I'm living on the bleeding
edge.

If you do not need quick turn around, want resolution, color depth, cost
effectiveness, and human control for focus, aperture, and speed get a
Realist, a scanner, and DDS.

John Toeppen
http://members.home.net/holographics/