12 replies to this topic

[MLXXX]

This still 3D camera with 3D video capability ( http://www.fujifilm....specifications/ ) has received only moderately positive reviews. Despite the (1280x720p24 Left + 1280x720p24 Right) resolution movie capability, reviews have suggested that the video detail is a little lacking; also lens barrel distortion has been mentioned.

Those seriously after a quality consumer level 3D camcorder could well consider the JVC GS-TD1. [I am.]

However the Fuji 3D W3 is selling for $189 at a Brisbane northside HN franchise (Everton Park), and a remarkably low $127, at HN Brisbane city. I snapped it up at $127, as despite its limitations it offers a true taste of 3D.  It needs an SDHC card for recording higher resolution video.  (Late this afternoon, I used a Sony SDHC 8GB card, a class 4 device, though I see the instruction manual recommends a class 6 card.)

It's too early for me to comment much on performance, but some indoor shots tonight were pretty amazing as regards the 3D effect, albeit the images were a bit soft.  (To see people you know, including yourself, in 3D on a television display is very very different to watching in 2D; somewhat eerie. For my vision, this is much closer to real life than 2D photography.)  Low light performance was good.  The lenticular screen on the camera performs well for recording and playback.

My Panasonic VT-20 3D plasma TV managed to read the SD card still photos in 3D, but couldn't read the videos. I transferred the videos to a pc and used the software 'sterescopic player' to play them in side by side mode.  It is also apparently possible to play the videos with an HDMI cable with a miniature connector at one end; not supplied with the camera.

This is more than a toy, though less than a high performance 3D camera. My main concern so far has been a softness and somewhat muted colour of the images, but over the weekend I should be able to do some tests in full sunlight. Sound quality seemed quite ok for a small camera: a little bit of hiss, and interestingly the format is 48kHz 16 bit stereo, i.e. no perceptual codec.

Edited by MLXXX, 30 October 2011 - 09:27 PM.

[pheggie]

You can also get free editing software from

http://stereo.jpn.org/eng/index.html

Stereo Movie Maker
and
Stereo Photo Maker

[duster]

MLXXX you've whet my appetite for superfluous spending! Sounds like a fun way to get more out of 3DTV.

Just looked them up on HN website, still has them listed at $599.95, why so cheap now?

Might have to pop in and check out instore for what they are selling for down here.

[MLXXX]

pheggie, on Oct 12 2011, 07:43 AM, said:

You can also get free editing software from

http://stereo.jpn.org/eng/index.html

Stereo Movie Maker
and
Stereo Photo Maker

Thanks, pheggie, some of the software at that link is quite useful.

duster, on Oct 13 2011, 12:41 PM, said:

MLXXX you've whet my appetite for superfluous spending! Sounds like a fun way to get more out of 3DTV.

Just looked them up on HN website, still has them listed at $599.95, why so cheap now?

Might have to pop in and check out instore for what they are selling for down here.

Perhaps HN are expecting some new 3D camera models soon. But if you can get one for a mere $127 I think the performance of the Fujii 3D W3 is pretty amazing.

The inter-lens distance is reportedly 75mm. According to Wikipedia: "The typical pupillary distance for adults is around 54–68 mm, while measurements generally fall between 48 and 73 mm.".

What this means is that the 3D is somewhat exaggerated (the exaggeration being more obvious for objects close to the camera).

The sound from the inbuilt microphones is surprisingly good.

I have still not made up my mind regarding the picture quality. I think the camera tends to exaggerate contrast. This means that even my Panasonic VT-20 plasma which is normally ghost-free shows up a bit of ghosting in 3D stills and videos from the camera.  I think the gamma of the camera may be  creating some crushed blacks. (The 'goth' look is popular today: black is beautiful!) i didn't have time to do much testing last weekend. I may try to take some comparative shots next weekend using 2D cameras.

There is no stabiliser for 3D video, so a tripod is a good idea.  A frame rate of 24fps is quite slow and with short exposure times a pan will inevitably look a bit jittery.  

The lenticular screen allows you to monitor what 3D effect you are getting.

As a camera to experiment with for 3D photography, I'd recommend it.

[BenjaminG]

Bought the W3 from Harvey Norman Glenorchy (Tasmania) this morning for $179. Had a brief look this morning and seems ok, but colours are very muted. The hefty build quality and disgraceful menus are ... bad, but for $179 hard to complain too loudly.

[duster]

HN has heaps of them down here priced at $198. I left empty handed, salesperson said not negotiable at this stage and to wait for 'camera sale'  which should be soon. He was quite nice about my mentioning that someone picked one up for $127, I'm guessing he judged me as 'short of money' not 'tight of ring!'

[BenjaminG]

Ok so Harveys had bumped up the price to $249 but then with buy one get one free, comes down to $124.50 each.

[hd-abc123]

BenjaminG, on Oct 28 2011, 05:32 PM, said:

Ok so Harveys had bumped up the price to $249 but then with buy one get one free, comes down to $124.50 each.

I picked up 2 for $198 as part of the buy one get one free. They were listed at this price in both of the Harvey Norman stores I went to.

[MLXXX]

hd-abc123, on Oct 29 2011, 08:33 PM, said:

I picked up 2 for $198 as part of the buy one get one free. They were listed at this price in both of the Harvey Norman stores I went to.

That was cheap.


Some test pictures
I've compared the 3D W3 with a couple of old cameras of mine, a Canon Powershot S2 IS still camera, and a Canon HV20 camcorder in still picture mode, at a distance of about 20 metres outdoors in overcast conditions.

For detail the S2IS is best (a very neat detailed image), followed by the HV20 (not quite as good), and the 3DW3 is quite a step down in quality.  I would hasten to add that what you can see at the pixel level of a still camera you may not see with the lower pixel density of a TV screen.  For general use, the detail is quite adequate.

For those interested, there is a link to a composite image (3DW3 on the left, and S2IS on the right) 1920 pixels wide, in a lossless format (PNG) at the post: http://www.dtvforum....&...t&p=1754332
[The lavendar colour provided by the 3D W3 is a little exaggerated - it should be closer to blue. The palm leaves (which were much closer to the camera) seem to be out of focus with the 3D W3 (an apparently lesser depth of field).]  


At that post you can also link to a 3D still of a yellow sign, red post box, and other parts of a suburban street, captured with the 3D W3 in 3D.  This is in various formats:
1. For cross-eyed viewing on any screen
2. For display by a 3D TV (squashed side by side mode)
3. For detailed inspection (the actual MPO file from the camera).

The 3D effect is quite pronounced.

The interaxial distance of the lenses of the 3D W3 is wide: 75mm, somewhat greater than average male adult interpupillary distance. This means the camera can give a noticeable 3D effect even for fairly distant objects. I note that the camcorders released to date by Panasonic and JVC use much narrower inter-axial distances (the JVC reportedly uses 35mm*). It may be that the 3D W3 will give a more useful 3D effect for certain scenes than the Panasonic and JVC camcorders.

Video performance

The video performance was surprisingly poor compared with still images rescaled down to 1280 x 720. This can be observed in the composite image at the linked post, which includes a video frame from the 3D W3 camera above a resized still frame.

The video picture is no better when played back with a mini HDMI cable on my Panasonic VT-20 plasma. The still pictures are quite sharp using the mini HDMI cable.

Although very poor, the video performance does not compare unfavourably with the softness of a great deal of free to air television.

______________
* See http://translate.goo.....0/Page-5.html for reported interaxial distances.

Edited by MLXXX, 31 October 2011 - 12:05 PM.

[ugoagogo]

Man I got 2 of those cameras I would sell for $200 + postage.

The family gottem free with some lg tvs they bought a while ago.

Never used em new in box

Edited by ugoagogo, 07 November 2011 - 11:01 PM.

[MLXXX]

Over Christmas, I took a large number of 3D stills and a small number of 3D videos with the W3. Viewing these today on my 50" Panasonic 3D plasma, I was mightily impressed with the realism added by the 3D. It gave me the feeling of "being there" again.

In years to come I expect to find it useful to include some of this "early adopter footage" in family video "highlights", despite the limitations in picture quality of this particular camera.

[kopthat]

I picked up one for $126 over the xmas break.

For $126 and the novelty factor, I think it is excellent value.

I will be taking it OS later in the year, so it will interesting to see how happy snaps and a little 3D video look.
I did notice that panning was a bit jittery in 3D video mode, so panning will be slow or kept to a minimum.
Using a tripod may offer a better result, so may get a mini one of those.

[MLXXX]

kopthat, on 10 January 2012 - 12:31 PM, said:

I did notice that panning was a bit jittery in 3D video mode, so panning will be slow or kept to a minimum.
Using a tripod may offer a better result, so may get a mini one of those.

Yes a steady slow hand, or a tripod are important at the time of capture. A steady capture also helps if the viewing is to be on a 3D display using shutter glasses. Current technology provides only a limited alternation rate (e.g. 60Hz per eye, 120Hz total) which for some people makes movement look jittery, and the 3D effect 'watery' or 'mirage' like.

____________________


I've been having some fun watching the stills and videos after they've been edited on a friend's pc using Sony Vegas Pro 11, which is not cheapest 3D authoring software, but is also far from being the most expensive. Hopefully, prices of 3D editing and encoding software will fall over the mext 12 months.

Vegas Pro 11 includes a wide range of video editing features including variable zooming and panning along the editing timeline. Although the Fuji Finepix W3 has little resolution to spare with its 3D movies (1280x720), its still 3D pictures have a much high pixel density and can be zoomed and panned to a large extent. Extreme zooming in results in a big disparity in the image content location as between the Left and Right views, which can be hard for human eyes to converge on. I found I could lessen the eye strain by using the “Sony Stereoscopic 3D Adjustment” editing function [actually intended to correct for any vertical/horizontal misalignment in capturing] to bring the Left and Right views closer together. [This is not a sophisticated editing effect involving a computerised analysis of apparent 'depth'. Rather it is simply a shift in the relative horizontal positioning of the cropping windows for the Left and Right views.]

The software can create a simple no frills 3D Blu-ray format ISO file, direct from the editing timeline, which can be burned to a rewritable Blue-Ray disc and played on a 3D Blu-ray player, including linear PCM multi-channel audio. [The video MPEG-4 MVC files appear in the Blu-ray STREAM folder as '0000.m2ts' for the base view and a smaller file '0001.m2ts' for the dependant view.]

Initially I was disappointed with a shudder in the Right eye view when playing back using my Panasonic DMP-BDT300 3D player. I thought this might have arisen because of the mismatch between the MVC 1080p encoding frame rate of 23.976fps, and the frame rate of the Fujipixel W3 of 24fps. However I discovered others had reported a shudder with that Panasonic player when playing home burned 3D discs. The solution was a firmware update for the Blu-ray player (easily done on-line with the player's own internet access).

I find the clarity of the Finepix 3D still images, when being displayed as 1920 x 1080 frame-packed 3D, striking. I find this Full HD 3D format provides a distinct improvement in clarity of detail compared with encoding as frame-packed 1280 x 720 p50, or as half-width side by side 1920x1080.