3-D Viewers!

In the past few weeks I have determined that taking 3-D photos is actually pretty easy. The required post processing is a bit tedious and inconvenient but not terrible either. The real challenge comes in the viewing!

For the 50% of the population that can “freeview” 3-D images comfortably it is not generally a problem but for everyone else some device must be used to “see” 3-D.

I will discount 3-D prints for the moment because I haven’t seen any yet. I will eventually get to that subject. There are only two sources that I know of, Fujifilm and Snap3-D.com, in Canada and 3-D Snap just announced that their last 3-D film printer is broken so their future in 3-D printing is uncertain for now, at least from film. There was a hint on the web site notice that they may be moving into the digital to 3-D print business soon. For now however,  let’s just set that discussion aside.

There are of course some 3-D televisions and/or monitors. Except for the 3.5” monitor on my new Fujufilm Fine Pix 3D W3 digital camera I have no knowledge or experience with these either. I do believe however, that the 7” monitor that Fujufilm sells as an accessory for their camera is probably just as amazing as the 3.5” monitor on the camera since it uses the same technology just with a bigger screen size. For only a couple hundred dollars I feel pretty confident in recommending it as a good investment for 3-D aficionados with the only reservation being of course that I have not actually seen or used one yet. Whether their technology will translate into a big screen monitor eventually remains to be seen.

I have not done an exhaustive study on the subject but all other 3-D televisions or monitors would appear (to me at least) to be too expensive and too experimental to seriously consider for now. In spite of impressive displays there is just too little 3-D programming available to justify the cost and they also require the use of special 3-D glasses which I find objectionable. I already wear glasses so I would have to have “prescription” 3-D glasses or wear glasses on top of glasses to benefit from the technology. That is expense on top of expense and just too inconvenient for my taste!

That leaves us to examine the assortment of 3-D viewers available. I purchased the two of them shown above mainly so my family (who don’t seem to have the “gift” of freeviewing as I do) can enjoy the fruit of my 3-D labors with me. These and a host of other 3-D products can be bought from

http://www.3dstereo.com/

These are both Loreo viewers. Loreo is a name well known in the 3-D world for many years. The larger viewer on the left is for viewing images (stereo pairs) 10-15 inches wide. This is what you would expect to see on for most computer screens with a full screen image. It has elastic ear strings for hands-free viewing so you can operate the computer mouse & keyboard to scroll through your images. 

The smaller viewer on the right is for images 5-7 inches wide.  This can be used with computer screen images if they are reduced to a partial screen view and it also works well with standard size photographs that have been aligned and cropped into a viewable stereo pair.

Both of these viewers do an excellent job. They are inexpensive, made of cardboard with plastic lenses and are collapsible with sleeves for easy flat storage. There are certainly more expensive viewers, more durable viewers, even more beautiful viewers, but I doubt that they are functionally any better than these. 

If you are unable to freeview 3-D stereo images get yourself an inexpensive Loreo viewer and enjoy.

I have been stuck on this 3-D topic for a few weeks now and need to move onto other subjects but I will return to it from time to time. Once I have some 3-D prints made (something I definitely plan to do soon) I will let you know how that works out and I may eventually experiment with the anaglyph images too (the ones that require the glasses to see) just to see if my low opinion in that regard is valid or mere prejudice.