New 3D Rig goodness . . .

Well . . . we now have a new rig for digital stereo photography . . . two Sony V3 digital cameras on a twin-rig, external flash with sync, using a LANC Shepherd Pro to control the cameras. Been wanting one of these rigs for some time. Got the LANC Shepherd Pro from Rob Crockett and have also ordered his twin rig support which I’m told is entering the mail in the morning . . . see his pages at Ledametrix.Com – Digital Stereo Photography for details on those fine products.

Originally, Lorraine thought we’d just get the Sony V1 cameras for the rig as they are plentiful and cheap right now in Taiwan. However, she changed her mind and started looking around for the Sony V3s as they are much nicer cameras and support compact flash which we have been using with my Canon rig.

The LANC Shepherd Pro allows one to monitor sync between two Sony cameras that support the LANC protocol (not all do this so you have to check the list of compatible cameras) and also allows one to get sync for flash photography, something that is difficult to achive with twin camera rigs without having to chop ’em up and mess about with the electronics. The LANC Shepherd allows one to get near-perfect sync without modifying the cameras . . . something very important to me as I don’t want to lose my warranty and I am an idjit when it comes to such things.

Well . . . I have had my LANC Shepherd Pro since before Christmas but no cameras to attach it to . . . we finally managed to track down a pair of new Sony V3 cameras in Taipei a few days ago. For now, we’ve mounted them to a twin bar side by side with an external flash connected to a cold shoe on one of the cameras so we’re good to go. Happy happy joy joy!

The distance between the lenses is a bit too wide and creates a hyper effect I don’t like as I really love to take stereo portrats. However, we’ll replace the bar when the new one comes which uses a portrait orientation with good lens spearation as seen in the image at the start of this post.

I posted my first few photos to the 3D Stereoview Exchange which some of you are members of and am quite happy with the rig thus far.

Water Boy . . . . . . We were visiting a couple friends in Taipei and took along my new twin rig to give it a bit of a try. The complex at our friends’ place has a beautiful courtyard filled with statues. Of course, when one sees a little boy pissing into a pool, one just has to catch it in 3D. The shot has a little ghosting in the anaglyph (red-blue 3D glasses) here but the parallel looks beautiful in 3D.

Celebrity Dog . . . . . . Last weekend, I hosted a hypnosis workshop in my home and one of the last minute attendees brought her dog with her. My wife, Lorraine, took a bunch of photos of the dog with our new rig as she and my daugher, Kaye, love animals. This particular dog also happens to be a celebrity in Taiwan and often appears on television programs or does special appearances. This is the first dog in the seeing eye dog program in Taiwan. She is retired now (had to retire early due to hip problems as her previous owner that she worked with lived on a fifth floor walkup with no elevator). She is old but affectionate and a bit energetic in her friendliness and is extremely gentle.

Dear Friends and More . . . . . . One of my hypnotist friends in Taipei is a reknowned psychologist, neruolinguistic programmer, hypnotist, and astrologer, Deepak Vidmar. With anyone else who combines psychology, trancework, and astrology, I would think they were over the line into the touchey feeley no critical thought territory of lala land but Deepak has a very critical understanding and knows whereof he speaks with the data to back it up. We visited Deepak and his wife Ming-Yng, a former Buddhist nun who is as gentle as they come, the day before they were set to head to India for a few months. You can check out his webpages at Astro-NLP – therapists will want to take a look at his calm ball process for panic attacks and more. This is an anaglyph (red-blue 3D glasses) so the red shirt comes off a bit harsh but the pair works well enough. From left to right: Lorraine Phillips, Rev. Dr. Brian David Phillips, Dr. Joseph Deepak Vidmar, Ming-Yng Vidmar (yes, the ladies are indeed much prettier than the men).

You can see some of the other shots in anaglyph and parallel format here.

I had never used Stereo Photo Maker but followed John Hart’s descriptions for batch processing and everything seemed to work wonderfully. Now, if only I could figure out how to get it to batch and adjust things a bit more intuitively or at least find a way to adjust a bit better to eliminate some of the viewing issues or the non-common photo space without having to crop and adjust every image individually (I tend to take hundreds of images when I’m shooting – just taking the rig out for our initial test shoot/walk around our neighborhood I took 150 photos – so batch processes are my friend). I typically would use Anabuilder as it has a nice window setting effect for batch processing but it is extremely slow on my machine so an alternative would be nice.

BTW, in John’s SPM tutorial, he mentions that you may need to adjust one image in the batch process by a few pixels to take into account mounting differences for the lens in the body. Could someone describe in extremely simplistic and babytalk terms just how I can determine what numbers to put where so that I can deal with horizontal or vertical alignment issues caused by the setup? I may have a PhD but I sure ain’t all that smart when it comes to some things and this is one of those things.

In any case, I am a happy camper and while I won’t be retiring my Canon 300D + Loreo LIAC setup forever, it will see a LOT less use in the future.

All the best,
Brian

More 3D news here.

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