|
Issue 9 · Spring
Meeting April 27, 2003
Steve
Horan hosted our
Spring 2003 gathering in Toronto. Following through on the promise he
made one year before Steve had made much progress in building a digital
3D camera system to be used as a special photography vendor at large
public events.
- Introductions
- We
organized ourselves for the formal part of our meeting. Stan
White said that he was just puttering around at the moment. J
Mutch said that he shoots 35mm slides for projection. Don
& Madolyn Tait from Welland shoots side by side
pairs and recently had a 3D slide show at the Brantford Camera Club. Matt
Neima said that he is interested in John Long's
medium format 3D. Mike Yatsula collects 35mm
camera's from the 50's and has been interested in Virtual Reality
systems for a long time. Pina Vinci loves
everything about 3D and gets her elementary students involved as well. Bob
Wilson collects early stereo items. David
Delouchery collects it all and has recently become involved
in creating stereocards and viewers for Civil War re-enactors. Felix
Russo is the editor of Photo-Ed magazine and mentioned about
the up coming special 3D winter issue. Jani Hamalainan takes
3D slides of his travels. Steve Horan welcomed us
to his home and mentioned that he is into spreading the word about 3D. Josh
Kaell has been inactive lately but just got his RBT camera
finally fixed. Simon Bell said that he has been
crawling around the ravines of Toronto filming wild flowers while they
are in bloom. Also in attendance were John Long, John
LaRocque, Matt Tatham, Sam Schlifer, Les Jones and Burke
Brown.
-
- Show & Tell
- So one
year after he first mentioned his plans Steve had
much to show us as he unveiled his matched digital camera system. Using
a Harbortronics Stereo Snap he has electronically synchronized the zoom
and shutter of two digital cameras. When
 Simon asked if the zoom was
controlled in perfect sync Steve's answer was a frustrated "NO!". At a
baseball camp in Florida he took a picture of a famous player but one camera was zoomed
to close and the other was zoomed too far and the images were not able
to be merged. He takes the memory cards out to load the images on to
his computer. He is able to save 128 pictures on each 128MB card. Using
an automated 27 step process he assembles the 3D pairs in Photoshop
with the click of one button. He says that he just wants to pay for his
hobby. People love looking at 3D but getting them to pay for it is
another story. He then handed out a sample image to each of us. His
company "3D Pics" is focussed on taking spontaneous and instant
pictures of the public at large events.
Bob
Wilson informed
us about the first NSA Midwest conference in Akron, Ohio (think of it
as a mini NSA convention). He then updated us about the 2003 NSA
convention in Charleston, South Carolina. Bob also said that "Ghosts of
the Abyss" had recently been released in Imax theatres. He also said
that there is a new Keystone museum in Meadville, Pennsylvania which
displays various manufacturing equipment and cameras that were used for
creating their views. You can even buy original views in mint condition
that has been in storage for more that 80 years. For more information
visit www.johnsonshawmuseum.org
Pina said that her latest views were still in her
camera and therefore she didn't have anything to show.
- David
Delouchery had a
couple of items that came his way as gifts. An anaglyph cover for a
Fine Young Cannibals 1989 album "Don't Look Back". A french language
book of anaglyphic images of the solar system. A 3D Valentine's card
complete with Red/Blue glasses and some examples of his American Civil
War stereoview cards from re-enactments.
-
 
Jani showed us his side by
side camera mounting system that he uses. It can mount the cameras
horizontally or vertically. He says that he synchronizes them with his
very un-electronic fingers.
Felix
mentioned
that his 3D issue of PhotoEd magazine comes out in November of 2003.
There will be a 2 page "How to" section which should inspire teachers
and students to try 3D photography. He talked about the first "WOW"
factor that he has seen kids express as they experience 3D for the
first time. Pina mentioned that she showed a view to some bikers and
their "WOW" term was actually "HOLY SH*T".
 Les cracked
a joke about SARS and later shared with a us a 1870's wet plate stereo
camera made by Thorton-Pickard.
Josh spent $300 and six trips to the states before
he finally got his RBT camera repaired at a unauthorized repair shop.
Now that the focal length is fixed he says that the camera is 95%
operational. Josh also mentioned that "Spykids 3D" was due in theatres
this summer but no one knew what format it would be projected in.
 Simon has
been using a 5 megapixel Nikon S700 camera to take cha-cha images of
wild flowers. He says that it takes excellent macro close-ups and can
optically zoom to 280mm. He then passed around some anaglyph views from
his "Cars of Cuba" slide show and some images he shot for Canadian
Geographic.
John
Long showed off
his Rollei triple lens reflex Rolleidoscop medium format stereo camera
from the 1930's. He also suggested that you could fix up a $100 used
Sputnik from ebay. He uses a old Zeiss viewer to look at his views but
he also suggested the medium format viewer from Rocky Mountain
Memories. He shoots at f-25 at a 1/50 second with a tripod in order to
achieve high depth of field. He and Stan White discussed their
experiences uses these user un-friendly cameras. John also mentioned
that there are 4 folios which share medium format images. The group
then debated image differences between Stereo-Realist images and medium
format.
John
La Rocque had a
portfolio of 2D aerial views that he and Matt Tatham shoot
from kites with a 15' wingspan and 50' tail. He said that taking
pictures in Labrador  under
gale force winds is not for the faint of heart. They now want to start
photographing in stereo.
Stan quipped that he was "just here to criticize".
J
Mutch says that
rolling film through his Realist gets stiffer towards the end of the
roll. Simon asked if he was rolling his own but I think he forgot that
we were still talking about film. I not sure if a solution was found
for J's problem.
Matt
Neima said that
director James Cameron has the backing to do a dramatic 3D feature.
Matt also brought some medium format views which he shot with his
sputnik.
 Bob showed
off a display stand of lenticular hockey cards which also included some
animated lenticulars which were highlighted with a special automated
tilting panel on the stand. Bob is going to need to move again to hold
all these items that he has been finding.
Burke
Brown talked
about the new Vivitar3D point and shoot Vivitar camera and how the
images are not transposed like the Loreo for parallel viewing. We then
discussed the aspects of cross-eyed viewing.
 The meeting
was then wrapped up and we spent the rest of our visit socializing and
looking at the various items that were brought for show & tell.
The
next meeting will be November 2, 2003 in Welland with our hosts Don and
Madolyn Tait.
|