Wow, after a lot of disappointment of late in the new digital 3D cameras, we have something genuinely worth looking forward to!  Yes, the Fuji Real 3D W3 is coming out soon!  See http://www.pocket-lint.com/news/34953/fujifilm-finepix-real-3d-w3-leaked for the good news.

I have the Fuji Real 3D W1 and am very very happy with it (especially since I use the StereoPhotoMaker freeware to process the images – don’t bother with the software that comes with the camera, it’s less than useless).

I was looking forward to the much vaunted explosion of new 3D digital cameras set to begin releasing this year but so far the news has been a whole lot beyond disappointing as the other camera companies are going with add ons to firmware or lense adaptations or worse yet the awful single-lens 3D variations which are essentially glorified chacha good only for still lifes (hint, when they show folks jumping in their promotional images they are doing something they like to think of as advertising but in real life we call lying as their cameras can’t capture moving subjects and make them viewable in 3D) or they are doing in-camera computer conversions of 2D to 3D which is going to leave a nasty taste in users mouths and minds.

The Fuji is the only real mass market true 3D stereocamera on the market (major mass market, that is) and while it has a few issues (lens flare, folks) it is still very very good.

Well, we thought since they had killed their standalone autosterepscopic frame that a dream of Fuji keeping the brand alive was dead in the water . . . especially since they have not promoted the W1 much, if at all (3D enthusiasts know how to get it but even then it’s rare – I  had to wait quite a while to track one down in Taiwan and I got the last one available from a vendor who was very frustrated with Fuji at the time).  Incidentally, the Fuji viewer should have been canned, it did not work well and looked awful . . . honestly, it should have never have been released in the state it was brought out (their lenticular processing needs overhaul to as most test images do not even appear to be genuine 3D to folks familiar with what stereophotography can accomplish).

Well . . . it looks like Fuji hasn’t given up the ghost and they are going even better . . . the Fujifilm Finepix Real 3D W3 has been spotted on their pre-order store and it has a number of excellent improvements.  Note the lenses are now black coated without all that shiny silver around them so the lens flare issue has been addressed (some folks painted their W1s while folks like me sucked it up and bore it as we didn’t want to screw with our warranty coverage – of course, the lens flare issue wasn’t as bad as some cameras out there and one could learn how to shoot to avoid or minimize it).

The new Real 3D W3 supports 720p high definition video, that’s great too.

So . . . if anyone feels an overwhelming urge to get me a present (feel free to LOOK INTO MY EYES AND FEEL THAT URGE NOW, DEEP, DEEPER, DEEPLY WITHIN YOUR UNCONSCIOUS MIND), feel free to pop on over to http://www.shopfujifilm.com/product_detail.asp?T1=FUJ+16082969&trk_src_ss=FUJGBASEWEBMACSS|SEO|GB| and order one of the puppies now.

All the best,
Brian