The 3D Camera

This is the camera I’ve always imagined Blinky, the three-eyed fish from The Simpsons, would use:

Behold the 120 Tri-lens from Chinese camera manufacturer 3D World. I won’t even pretend that I understand how it works (like why it needs the 3rd lens to capture a stereo photo - aren’t two lenses enough? I have 2 eyes and I see in 3D … )

Links: Impact Lab has the spec | Like Cool has more pics | Original website [down when I tried it] - via The Bad Rant

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April 7, 2008 at 8:44 pm by Alex
Category: Gadget, Pictures

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18 comments to "The 3D Camera"

Parker
April 7th, 2008 at 8:53 pm
How strange, every link I went to has lots of pictures of the camera but not one 3D picture to let you know what the result would look like..which is the point of the revolutionary product.
twoeightnine
April 7th, 2008 at 9:04 pm
The top lens is the viewing lens. It’s easier than framing and focusing through stereo lenses.
twoeightnine
April 7th, 2008 at 9:19 pm
There’s some on this page.
http://stereo.thurstons.us/gallery.htm
I wouldn’t recommend clicking on the applet that gives you the actual 3D result. It froze up my Mac like nothing I’ve ever seen before.
brem
April 7th, 2008 at 10:06 pm
They don’t show any results!

From past experience with handheld 3d cameras marketed to customers at large, this is BAD news. It means it DOESN’T WORK WORTH SH…

Next.
Dan
April 7th, 2008 at 10:51 pm
This is a FILM camera.

FILM, as in one chance at a shot, expensive to develop, and getting rarer.

If it were digital, maybe. But FILM?

Film is dying. Radiology departments are almost all digital, and are certainly distributed that way. Movies are quickly becoming digital, and are certainly distributed that way. New media is all digital anyway, and — yep — certainly distributed that way.

Did I mention the 3-D montrosity is a FILM camera?
DrJones
April 8th, 2008 at 12:10 am
So, what exactly is the desired outcome and what is it’s application?
su.wei
April 8th, 2008 at 2:44 am
sounds cool…but everyone above is right
Patrick Scott
April 8th, 2008 at 3:35 am
In the past I’ve used a disposable 3d camera. The pics were kind of weird but cool. They had lots of depth and could have been an interesting project if I had more time and money. The camera was sold at Wal-Mart and you had to mail it away to get the pics processed. By the way it also had three lenses. I think their arranged by near, mid range and far giving you a full depth of view.
Frank
April 8th, 2008 at 3:37 am
Here are lots of links to really nice cross-eyed stereo pictures:

http://www.fotocommunity.de/pc/pc/display/777504
clinton labombard
April 8th, 2008 at 5:37 am
Dan, because digital photos and video aren’t admissible in court film is still quite valuable as an analog medium. It’s extremely difficult to alter an analog photo without it being noticed: not so with digital. Unless something comes along which changes that, analog photography will be around for a bit longer.
twoeightnine
April 8th, 2008 at 8:45 am
Some people still like film.
stiggy
April 8th, 2008 at 1:22 pm
If It does what I think it does… which is use triangulation to discern 3d coordinates and organize it using a 3d graph display… then the 3rd lens is indeed not necessary… but allows the data to be that much more exact than when using just 2 lens. The 3rd lens is used for validation.
CheeseDuck
April 8th, 2008 at 2:53 pm
It looks cool. So where can I get one?
Chris
April 8th, 2008 at 4:16 pm
The third lens on top is the viewing lens. Its basically like a twin lens camera like the old Rolleiflex except it has an extra taking lens.

Some of us prefer film. It has a different look.
Thomas
April 8th, 2008 at 4:48 pm
That camera looks like it could sneak into a heavily guarded building, kill a few high-priority targets, and sneak out with the evidence.
DrJones
April 8th, 2008 at 8:59 pm
No Thomas, you’re thinking of Max Fisher!
That3dGuy
April 9th, 2008 at 2:40 am
Yes, it’s a film camera, resulting in medium format stereo pairs, their preference is slides, and sell a separate medium format slide viewer as well, think Viewmaster on steroids. If you’ll remember the tiny slide film on viewmasters is about the size of the old negatives on disk cameras, these negatives are bigger than Imax negatives ! It’s actually an incredibly stunning result. I bought a viewer and a 10 pack of stereo slides from them a year or so ago and it is very impressive.

If you have red/blue anaglyph 3d glasses like from the Spy Kids 3 or Sharkboy movies you can see 3d pictures for free that I’ve taken at my site:

http://www.3d-pictures.com

I use a custom digital rig and can also do traditional stereo pairs, which are superior to anaglyph (since they don’t filter colors) but anaglyph glasses are more accessible to the masses with simple cardboard glasses. Hey, I rhymed
Aaron Muderick
April 10th, 2008 at 10:46 am
This camera creates medium format stereo pairs. If you think film is lame or film is dead then you just reveal your cluelessness about photography. If film was dead, why would Kodak and Fuji still be doing R&D and issuing new, improved products.

Clearly, you have never seen a medium format stereo pair. They are stunning. Mind blowingly awesome. The images this camera creates are like actually being there. No other 3D image display technology can beat medium format stereo slides.

If you think 3D is anaglyphs or cross-eyed viewing of an image on an LCD monitor, then I’m sorry for your ignorance.

If you are willing to invest some time, you can get similar images using this, less expensive camera:
http://rafcamera.com/stereo/sputnik.htm

If you are willing to learn to do some chemistry, you can develop the slides yourself (it is not as hard as people might tell you) for about $2 a roll.

Have fun!