Any advice and help rigging twin cameras for 3d stereo?

steve ohlhaber wrote:

Hi Steve,

Yes, this is the route I would like to go. I found that the Canon s95 is not manufactured anymore, but some turn up on Amazon and probably Ebay or other internet sources. Would you be interested in rigging the cameras for me for compensation?

Thanks,

Sherri

Hi Sherri,

Its something you should do yourself since you need to know how it all works. There is no hardware fiddling at all, its all about getting the software installed on the sd cards. Its pretty easy.

So from scratch, all you need to do is:

1. Buy two s95 cameras

2. Get two SD cards.

3. Download this program called assist, and it will put the right version of SDM on the sd card.

4. Get a 3d bar. I am not a fan of zbars at all. Plenty of cameras shoot 3d with the lenses too close together. If you need a zbar, then you need one, which you can find at digi-dat.de I just use a standard side by side bar from Berezin:

http://www.berezin.com/3d/twinbar.htm

You can get pretty cheap bars on ebay, like $10. Look for camera dual mount or something.

5. Order a USB remote as the trigger. This you can get from this place:

http://www.digi-dat.de/produkte/index_eng.html#SDM

You need this item: mini SDM remote with integrated battery holder for 2*CR2016 (batteries included) with right angeled mini USB plugs

That costs 35 euros. Its where I got mine.

That's all for the hardware stuff you need.

After running the Assist program on each of the SD cards, connect your usb trigger to both cameras, and you can shoot in 3d. The usb trigger is just the "fire" button to shoot the pic. The cameras still work in the same way as they normally do and you have to set them both to the same settings, like P mode or whatever. Even when they are both hooked to the USB trigger, they still can both work as normal and take pics. All the new software is doing is detecting that usb signal to fire the picture.

I would say, buy all the hardware and give it a shot. If you have to mail it off to someone else, you will already have everything you need.

Then you need the free viewing software, like Stereo Photo Maker to pair the images up. Usually, you have a left and a right jpg that are stuck together. All these 3d tvs allow you to see 3d stills. You may need to change the extension of the LR file to JPS instead of JPG. Side by side format as jpg seems to be fine on my Samsung. JPS format is literally a jpg called jps to denote that its 2 images in the jpg. Its still just a jpg file.

Thanks Steve,

Two Canon S95 cameras ordered.  Z-bar and mini SDM mini remote ordered from digi-dat.de, hopefully with the right angled plugs.  Just need to get the SD cards and download the software.  I have used Stereo Photo Maker a bit.  I am very glad that the hardware parts are available commercially, because I dreaded having to try to rig something up.

Sherri