Even with the most expensive camera there’s a detail that always escapes and that’s called immersion. No matter how god a photo is, you’ll always know it’s just a picture, there’s not a feeling of being there, if you know what I mean. But things doesn’t have to be the same, and 3DWorld tries to prove that with the help of TL120-1, a digital camera meant to take 3D pictures.
TL120-1 does look like a Terminator, you must admit that
Now don’t run and tell your mom to give you money to buy one. First read on and find out what 3D means in 3DWorld’s vision. TL120-1 is a modified film camera, fitted with three lenses, specially positioned so that the three resulting pictures are interpolated and then combined together when used with a special projector, that 3DWorld also provides.
Now the specs, which are not that special, if you don’t take into consideration the three lenses:
- Camera Type: Medium Format Tri-lens Stereo Camera (Reflex Viewing Lens)
- Lenses: Anti-reflection coated glass optics, seven elements in six groups. f/2.8, 80mm focal length
- Lens Separation: 63.5mm
- Focusing: manual adjustment, 0.8m - infinity
- Shutter Type: metal focal plane shutter
- Aperture: F2.8, 4, 5.6, 8, 11, 16, 22 and six half stops
- Shutter Speeds: B, 1,1/2, 1/4, 1/8, 1/15, 1/30, 1/60, 1/125, 1/250, 1/500Sec.
- Light Metering: consists of two of SPD’s (silicon photo diodes) for light measurement; aperture and shutter speeds are matched according to the LED display.
- Viewfinder: consists of a viewfinder hood and lens, Eye-level pentaprism type with .0.7 X magnification
- Focusing Screen: Split-image micro-prism type surrounded by a Fresnel screen. 3 LEDs in 5 exposure graduations display overexposure (+), correct exposure (O) & underexposure (-)
- Flash Synchronization: X-contact only, sync speed 1/30 sec. or slower
- Film Advance: Lever provided; 16O standoff angle and 128O winding angle, aligning film numbers through window on camera back
- Power Source: Choice of two 1.5V alkaline-manganese batteries or two 1.55V silver-oxide batteries.
- Film: One roll of 120 reversal film for a pair of 58mm x 56mm stereo images. 6 pairs per roll.
- Dimensions: Approx. 207mm x 205mm x 134mm (8.15" x 8.07"x 5.28"), camera body only
- Weight: 1960g or 69oz (camera body only)
A more complete user manual can be downloaded from here. My opinion is that this kind of product is only suited for some purposes, it can’t fulfill a typical photographer, and depending on how you define "some purposes" it might prove a very bad investment.
Product page (via Ubergizmo)
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Let’s get this straight from the start, this NOT a digital camera. It uses 120 roll film ie. 60 mm and produces SUPERB 52×52 mm (mounted actual viewable) transparencies, compared to 23×34 on a 35mm slide. The quality of the images is superb, and they are viewed with the hand held hold-up-to-the-light viewer supplied with the camera. The middle top lens is the reflex viewing lens, ala SLR cameras. There is no magic interpolation etc going on here, 3D cameras reproduce the third dimension simply by having 2 eyes as YOU do. It records the scene as you see it, with human binocular vision, and with the viewer, each eye sees the view that each “eye” of the camera saw. We perceive depth in our sight because of the slight difference in what each eye sees, and the brain combines the images to produce one, but with depth.
May 6th, 2007