All stereo pairs on this page are set up as cross view.
This was my first go at making a digital stereo camera.
This beautiful rig, machined from 6061 T6 aircraft aluminum,
rigidly holds a Zenit Beamsplitter in position with an Olympus FE-100
4MP digital camera. It would have been
wise to upgrade the camera to an Olympus FE-110, which is the identical
camera, only 5MP. The large tube encloses the lens and is baffled to
reduce external light sources and internal reflections. The
beamsplitter is part of a complete set. It is designed to fit a Zenit
58mm lens, and as such, produces split frame stereo slides which can be
viewed through the same splitter reconfigured as a viewer. Only the
actual beamsplitter is used in this application.
This custom camera rig uses the beamsplitter to create a digital stereo
image which avoids the problems associated with aligning and
synchronizing two digital cameras. All current digital stereo cameras
on the market are custom modified pairs of cameras, and typically cost
around $2000.
The camera rig makes stereo images which must be adjusted in Photoshop
or another image editing program. With practice, I can now crop and
align a stereo pair in Photoshop in about 5 minutes. The weakness of
this design (as with all beamsplitter cameras) is the challenging
composition due to the portrait format. This is exacerbated by the
black bar that separates the left and right images when shooting from a
digital camera’s small lens. never the less, it produces very
servicable images, perfect for internet posting (see the sample pair).
Alternatively, the edited images could be sent to one of the photo labs
which produce conventional slides from digital images (by eMail order),
and then could be viewed using twin slide viewers such as the
“Pinsharp” viewer.
This cross view image was made before cleaning a smudge off an internal
glass surface, which is visible in the Right hand image (the left image
here).
Another advantage of this design is that you can see instantly whether
the picture came out OK rather than having to wait for your slide film
to be returned from the developers. You also don’t need to pay
for film, and can take pictures with wild abandon.
The camera rig comes equipped with three rubber feet for table top
shots, a tripod mounting hole, and a captive screw for quick mounting
and unmounting of the camera, without fumbling with or losing the
knurled knob mounting screw. It feels comfortable and solid in your
hands.
This camera was sold on eBay, and I only made the one. There may be
another beamsplitter camera in my future. The attraction of not
needing shutter sync is very powerful.
Contact me at:
newportts@bellnet.ca
