Upgrade from the 3D Bloggie: the Panasonic 3D1 - Page 10

Thanks for the heads up on the battery problem. I have two 3rd party batteries that came with a charger at huge discount and so far no issues but I will keep your experience handy should I get into trouble.

The thing with 3rd party batteries is to make sure that they contain the override chip which bypasses Panasonics inbuilt protection system that identifies non official products and shuts the camera down.
I presume you did this as you say that one of the batteries works fine therefore my guess is that the chip failed in the offending one which doesn't help when you're at a one time only shoot such as the wedding you attended.
As Threed sugested it's alway best to keep the official Panasonic battery just incase although my experience with it is that of short lifetime so I always carry 4 batteries with me 3 third party and the 1 official after all better safe than sorry.

I had the Panasonic battery with me the whole time. It never occurred to me that a battery could cause half of a unit to work so I never tried it. My cousin hired a professional photographer, so they will have great pictures. They just won't have them in stunning 3D

Hey all,

I picked up the 3D1 last week and loving the camera. Previously owned a W3 but this is leagues ahead, specifically the video. I made a little compile of some vision from a visit to the Melbourne Aquarium. Its my first 3D upload to Youtube and would appreciate your feedback. I can tell you the reflections in the glass proved to be quite a challenge but I think overall it turned out ok

I edited using Sony Vegas

Cheers,

Joe.

Hey Joe, I just watched your youtube offering on my passive LED TV and thats a very impressive video Sure knocks the socks off the other ones on there. Great music too!
I'll leave the technical critic to the more technically advanced on here such as Don who is probably the most technically advanced of all of us judging by his work and was no doubt born with a silver 3D camera in his hand? lol
I love this camera don't you? Considering it's size and cost it gives great results and I'm sooooo glad I chose this over the W3.
The colours and low light capabilities as well as the 1080p HD video quality for such a small unit are astounding and your video proves this specially the footage of the penguins and cuttle fish.
I have a few questions though...
Were you hand holding the camera as the panning is very smooth, much smoother than I seem to be able to achieve?
What EV setting did you use in the aquarium as the exposure was spot on also what did you have the 3D set to as your focus seemed a lot more stable than on my camera and was wondering if it's cause generally I have mine set to -2?
All in all though Joe, in my humble opinion, thats a great video and can't wait to see your next one.

Hey Outfoxed Ya,

Thanks for the kind words mate I appreciate it. Yeah I'm loving this camera, you're spot on about its features and portability they really do hit a sweet spot. With regards to your questions:

- All the shots were taken handheld. After owning the Fuji W3 I'm well practiced keeping the camera moves smooth as you basically had to pretend you were an archer/sniper with that thing to avoid the jitters & blurs, lol. Personally I think the optical stabilizer is pretty good in the 3D1, but yeah you do have to be careful still.

- In the Aquarium I think most of the shots were taken with -2/3 EV, but I adjusted a couple where this was too dark. I did also spend a bit of time in Vegas with the "levels" filter boosting some of the darker shots, as well as the "color corrector" filter boosting the overall saturation about 10%. This combined with a little careful sharpening seemed to help the vision overall.

- The convergence controls I actually completely forgot about at the time (still learning) but I did have to adjust a few shots in Vegas with the "Stereoscopic 3D" filter as there were a few eyeball busters. Next time around I'm going to experiment a bit here to see if I can improve some of the zoom closeups.

- Focus related, I did notice at the start of of just about every clip the camera "pumps" the focus until it finds the right spot. With this in mind I always let the camera run a second or two before I do any pans or moves, then just trim the pump off in Vegas. Oh also I found the clips actually cut off a second earlier than when I press stop record, so I try and let the shot run a bit longer when I'm recording too... that's a tricky one to remember.

Lots to learn with Stereo movie making, but its so so rewarding. Working on a new clip now and will happily share it as well as any other tips I discover as I come by them! Again thanks for the feedback and look forward to seeing some more vision you're shot!

Cheers,

Joe.

Hey fellow Lumix owners,

Here's another vid for you. Probably my last with this camera as I've upgraded to the JVC HMZ1U, I will definitely still be using this camera but primarily for photos.

Enjoy

Well, I took the 3d1 to Germany along with a Sony RX100--for dslr-like images where possible. Came home with over 1000 3D pics and over 300 RX100 pics. Couldn't beat the RX100 for those great lanscape pans and resolution--especially for prints. The 3D1 held it's own, though. After much agony the last 4 months, I decided to keep the E/V on 0 and the 3D separation on 0, and wow, it was the right decision. Even in bright sun, the 0 setting gave me the best all around images. While I lost some highlights, the shadows had detail and that saved almost all the bright sun pics. And it was also great for cloudy days and indoors, so it worked well. When it didn't work, I would either point the camera toward the sky or down toward the ground, then press the shutter halfway, then shift the camera to take the picture to control the lighting--got pretty good at it. As for the 0 separation, I was using -2 in the past for greater separation, but after looking at past pics on my projector, the -2 was too much and 0 proved to be the best all around. The stereo base is still too small for really good, rounded 3D, but I found that I can live with the 3D1 because of the sharp images. If this camera had 60mm separation it would be perfect.I'll try to post a few of my best shots in the coming weeks.

Hey, thanks for that. Everything was shot with the camera at -2/3 exposure 0 parallax from memory.

I did do quite a bit of tweaking of colors and levels in Sony Vegas until I was happy with the overall look though. I also found the video to be a bit soft overall, however
when I added any sharpening to the image it became too harsh rapidly and kind of destroyed the finer details. A nice little work-around i found was to sharpen just one of the
sides, for example just the left. The when you are playing back the video in 3d the two images mix together to provide a nice balance of sharp and soft. Sounds a bit funny but
I found it worked quite well. Give it a go and see what you think!

Even though all my video is now shot with the JVC HMZ1 I still love this camera for its quality stills and portability, plus the video is pretty good.. well until you watch it on a 100"inch
projector, then it gets a little harsh IMO.

Would love to see others videos/stills.

Cheers,

Joe.

Great idea, Joe. I will have to try that. I'm really disappointed in my projection of MPOs. I thought they would be as sharp as watching a blu-ray 3D movie, but just are not up to par, so I'm looking for ways to improve--I'm torn between using the 3D1 or going back to the Fuji, at least for outdoor shots.