Sony working on 3D Alpha DSLR cameras?
By Tim Stevens 
posted December 18th 2009 8:51AM
posted December 18th 2009 8:51AM
posted December 18th 2009 8:51AM
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I really hope Sony makes some 3D cameras. I have one of their 2D ones and I keep misplacing it because I can't see it edgewise.
Oh god! Kill me now!
As long as they rely on those stupid glasses for 3D I'll never buy into it; I don't care how hard the manufacturers push it.
You can of course see the 3D in 3D photos online without glasses now using Start 3D's new service (http://www.start3d.com). If you take photos with the Fuji 3D camera, you can simply upload the resulting .mpo files and, hey presto, you can see the 3D on a normal 2D monitor!
I hereby coin the term SL3D Camera "Single Lens 3D Camera".
@roxics
You lost an R...
@RaZe42
I'm not sure the reflex part will need to apply. Is there a mirror?
@roxics
The R is rather significant since all cameras have a single lens, and soon will boast 3D, so you could not tell the types apart with your name.
How about R3D (I think that's not trademarked by lucas) and it has a ring I think, and the reflex already implies it's single lens so that part is superfluous anyway.
@Wwhat
Not all cameras are single lens, especially 3D cameras where most are two lenses. Second, when it comes to digital cameras, a reflex mirror is not necessary. They exist in most current DSLR's as a hold over from the film days when a reflex mirror was needed to make a single lens camera/viewfinder work.
So SL3D is good choice for a name.
i guess they'll go with TWO lenses for the 3D camera ....so that their super expensive lens market is just "doubled" !! and a different mounting mechanism too so that we can't use our old lens for 3D ... :-)
@streetsmart Did you read anything of the entry beyond the headline? I'm guessing not, so here's the important sentence for you: "...Sony's HFC Comfort-3D movie camera (similar to the HDC-F950 used to film action sequences in Avatar) does 3D through a single port, meaning you won't necessarily have to go out and double your glass collection to use one of these."
Well...Sony already has a single lens 3D video camera. But I'd imagine you could do a 3D SLR with Sony's sensor shift system. Set the camera up and have it take two images in a row, sifting the sensor position between frames.
@(Unverified) Yes, but my eyes are further apart from each other than the sensor can move. And... the sensors should be much smaller than the circle of illumination, don't they? At least that's how the illustration of that videocamera looks like.
Just as Kadajawi has pointed out the system Sony is using in their single lens 3D camera is not ideal for 3D with good separation for still or video.
The fact is, It appears that their single lens system is using lenses with a large diameter (much too big for a conventional handheld DSLR) to provide some room for image separation. This is not going to provide an immersive sense of depth in the 3D. This also has nothing to do with needing or not needing glasses as it appears some people are assuming. 3D capture and display are unrelated in the digital world as long as there are 2 images (1 for each eye) recorded. The only way they can make a camera that doesn't have an enormous lens is by having two lenses that allow for separation.
Two lenses would be enormous too, and would require an enormous body and perhaps even 2 sensors, and at that point you might as well just sell a metal plate to put 2 DSLR on and solve it that way.
It would be great if they would spend some more money on sensor development as well. DSLRs are a very good product, but it kills me that I can still get better colors on film. At this point, I need more pixels or 3D like I need a flat tire.
Flat tire gives you a chance to get on foot and take some pictures :)