3D images!

[An old fasioned 3D camera] [1] [2] My maternal grandfather was into photography, mostly films (8mm although he did some work in Super-8 in his later years) but he did have a few odd-ball 35mm cameras like the Realist 3D 35mm camera [3] from what looks to be the 50s. To say it's a manual camera is an understatement. Manual shutter speed, manual apature and a very odd focusing system; a parallax system where you line up the top half of the viewport with the lower half. It's a bit harder than it sounds because the view port itself is this small hole on the back of the camera along the bottom edge which is hard to see through.

I'd had the camera for years—since 1982 when he died, and I've never gotten around to actually using the camera. Not even when I was taking photography at FAU (Florida Atlantic University) [4] about ten years ago. I finally played around with it a few years ago, around 1999 or so, by taking some pictures around Condo Conner. Given the manual nature of the 3D camera I also took along my semi-automatic 35mm camera which I used to set proper shutter speed and apature. I had the pictures developed and promptly forgot about them, until one of the Kids found the photos.

In looking at the photos, I realized that I'm going to have to ask them not to cut the negatives since the size of the images are a bit smaller than normal.

Ill-cut negatives of 3D images [5] [6]

To view the image, you'll need to cross your eyes util both images merge into one (you can try with the thumbnail below, but if it's too small, click on it to attempt a larger version), although according to Jason Kottke [7] about 5-10% of people have trouble doing this. I attempted to do a red/blue version for those funky 3D glasses you get at films but I had trouble getting the right shades of red and blue to get it to work properly. Perhaps if I played around with it more I could do it.

But for now, enjoy my first attempt at 3D photography.

[3D Trees!] [8] [9]

[1] /boston/2003/08/20/thumb.3d-camera.jpg

[2] /boston/2003/08/20/a-3d-camera.jpg

[3] http://www.stereoscopy.com/cameras/realist-35.html

[4] http://www.fau.edu/

[5] /boston/2003/08/20/thumb.3d-strip.jpg

[6] /boston/2003/08/20/a-3d-strip.jpg

[7] http://www.kottke.org/03/01/030127fun_with_ste.html

[8] /boston/2003/08/20/thumb.3d-forest.jpg

[9] /boston/2003/08/20/a-3d-forest.jpg

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