When small interaxials just don't cut it!

So, when is your trip to the Grand Canyon?

I remember reading someone shot a space shuttle launch with an interaxial of several hundred feet

That is insane, doe's it give amazing depth?

Frank- Have you begun to use UV filters to reduce haze for those distance shots? I would. It will improve your contrast. I have one on order for my TD10.

Sounds like you are advancing into the world of Broadcast Professional! Better get used to adding a decimal point or two to your budget. I'd love to sell you two of my D30WS rigs but at 26 pounds per camera may be a bit much. Besides they are not HD.

I got my UV filter and rubber lens hood for my TD10 late in the day and I got a chance to do a quick test shoot at a distance of about 250 ft and it does a nice job of sharpening up the detail at that distance.

IA philosophy- John Cameron showed his custom designed cameras he used in Avatar and Sanctum. They looked to be about 2" IA.

For your big camera system- Have you considered Red camera rig with a Technica over through bench?

I'm hoping to see your results shooting distances of several miles of mountain ranges. I'm planning to do a shoot in the Bryce Canyon of Southern Utah, hopefully next Spring. Been there once before and it is the most amazing visual to see anywhere on the planet. Would only need to capture distances of about 2-3 miles.

No need for that; you're not supposed to use the zoom in 3D anyways.

Right now I'm working on becoming an expert shooter with the TD10. The whole experimenting I'm doing with the filters is for the purpose of the long range shooting in that area of the country. Bench rigs are not compact enough for me. I need to be able to carry everything on me for long hikes. My days of packing the big stuff are long over.

I do believe the Technica3D people have a sync system that locks the twin Red lenses in every setting, including variable speed zoom. You should talk to their engineer. I spoke to a guy named Olge, who could be your twin brother, BTW When I first saw him at the booth I thought it was you! Really nice guy and loves to discuss this stuff from a design POV.

Sounds like a professor at film school to me. Yeah, right, well Frank and I make the rules, I see you just teach them.
Variable speed zoom is OK, shaky-cam looses it! Rack focus is very difficult but if done right can work too.

PS- the only shaky-cam production in 3D I have seen to date is in the movie Drive Angry. They do a pretty good job of holding the 3D together with shaky-cam.

Even if you do not change the zoom level during the scene, you want close sync so you always have both camera's zoom at matching levels. Frank - are you building your rig to change the interaxial distance automatically as you zoom?

Frank- that is what the 3D stereographic analyzer does. When I saw it in operation, as we adjusted the Zoom everything on the bench moved. Very impressive to watch from a mechanical perspective. Unlike you suggested, they use analysis of the two images to generate the correct alignment, reducing and maintaining error to zero.

Yes, but I gather they wrote most of them. :G

Imagine this in 3D:
http://www.frequency.com/video/natur...non-eos/307353

Won't be fighting crowds here but I will be fighting gravity

OK, but what I would do is hand my HD Hero 3D helmet to the kids and ask them to wear it all day.

Oh yeh, it would take a steady head and a lot of editing.

I recently shot an experiment in "shaky cam" by riding in an off road vehicle over rough terrain. I really wanted to capture the feel of the ride in this case. To the few I showed this to it worked but I'm still working with the edits. One trick is to allow the motion blur to happen if it can also work for the 3D. Lots of compromise here. I did find the need to do quite a bit of slomo which helps smooth out the extreme shake. Vegas does a good job with this. Unfortunately the image stabilizer in Vegas doesn't work for 3D clips, only 2D.

Here's one for you Frank- Ever thought of building a gyroscope steadycam for the smaller camcorders? I think this would work and be much more effective than the steadycam juniors and the glide cams. Steadycams, were really designed and built for heavier cameras, then made smaller for smaller cameras. Years ago I talked to the people who built the steadycam and they laughed at the idea of a gyroscope because it would be way too big and heavy for a 25 pound camcorder. Maybe this idea is better suited for a 3 pound camcorder or how about a Bloggie 3D?

I'm not sure that was what I had in mind Frank. I'll have to study it more.

On bench wide IA:

I just reviewed my video of a night performance of Fireworks laser and water light show. While I shot it in 3D the distances were too great to see any 3D effect. I had to shoot in full wide angle as well. There was one laser effect in the distance I zoomed in on and this did show some minor 3D z axis stereo. I may as well have shot it with 2D. Disappointing to say the least. I have never been able to capture the true effect of a show of this type with any type camera. But I haven't tried a bench 3D rig yet.

So here's a challenge for your bench rig: Haul it to your local July 4th Fireworks show and shoot it. It should be quite a challenge and a real true testimonial for your hypothesis on super wide IA for those distance 3D shoots.