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04 April 2011
If you enjoy creating 3D anaglyph photos with your digital camera and have been getting varied results from handheld shots or homemade tripod rigs, we have found a very slick solution. For those of you who don’t know much about 3D anaglyph photos, they are 3D images created by superimposing a pair of photos from slightly different viewing angles in red and blue, red and green or red and cyan color channels that give you a full depth 3D experience when viewed with 3D glasses. And yes, you can make your own 3D anaglyph photos using your point and shoot or DSLR camera and free software at home. For more about that, you can read my tutorial: Photography: How to create 3D anaglyph photos.
As for the focus of this review, Bonsai (one of our members here) recently purchased the Mission3D 303 3D Anaglyph Camera Kit and brought it in for testing and review. Of course, I was more than willing to help him out.
The Photo3D 303 Anaglyph Camera Kit from Mission 3D is a complete 3D anaglyph kit for your digital camera. For $149, the package includes the Photo3D 303 tripod attachment, a lightweight pistol grip convertible tripod, 3D anaglyph software for Windows or Mac, 10 pairs of cardboard 3D glasses with sleeves, 1 pair of plastic 3D glasses and one pair of 3D clip ons for people who wear eyeglasses.
The star of this kit is undoubtedly the Photo3D 303 tripod attachment. This tripod head unit allows you to easily slide and position your camera to take your offset shots while taking all the guesswork out of the equation. We worried this might be some cheaply constructed and largely useless gadget but we were pleasantly surprised both with the build quality and its ease of use. Made from high density plastic with metal slide and latch, the Photo3D 303 tripod attachment inspires confidence and will support cameras from small point and shoot to larger DSLR, though the latter will require a solid tripod.
The Photo3D 303 tripod attachment comes with an integrated bubble level for easy setup. It also has clear markings on the slide bezel for various subject distances to ensure you have the proper offset for better end results. The Macro position (0 to 3 feet), Portrait (3 to 6 feet) and Landscape (6 to infinity) ... which worked very well!
On the underside, we find a solid mounting nut and rubber pads to prevent slip.
Overall, a very nice design!
As for the pistol grip monopod/tripod…in pistol grip mode, we found it fairly redundant as it still required the use of both hands to hold and operate the camera. Additionally, while it is suitable for smaller cameras, I would not trust this thing to hold a DSLR.
It did illicit a slight “Hmmm-Cool!” reaction when we flipped it into tripod mode. It’s a clever design, and could be fairly useful with small cameras.
As for the included software, while it is Windows compatible, in order to install it on our Windows 7 64 bit laptop, we had to do so using Windows compatibility mode but it did install and work well.
While the User Interface does smack of cheesiness, it is quite a capable little program and we found it quite easy to use though some of the controls, specifically the layer adjustment button, a bit small.
And the result? (Sorry…we were limited by our environment!)
The verdict?
I was quite impressed with the 303 itself and will give Mission3D some points for putting together a very nice package. As far as value is concerned, some will find the $149 price tag a bit high considering that 3D glasses can be purchased online for as little as $.50/pair and that similar software is available for free (Anamaker 3D, Callipygian)…and I would have to agree. On the other hand, given the uniqueness of the 303 attachment and, for those of us who create a lot of 3D anaglyph photos, its decent build to usefulness ratio makes the Mission3D 303 3D Anaglyph Camera Kit a worthwhile purchase.
I would rate Mission3D 303 3D Anaglyph Camera Kit a solid 4 out of 5 stars!
For more information, you can visit Mission3D here: http://www.mission3-dgroup.com/index-holding.php?web=kit.
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