The Ending of a Winter Season!

The winter season seemed to come closer to an end as the snow faded from the ground slowly and the month of March began.  I was happy to have the V1 to show people because seeing a 3D screen without glasses was in demand and not common.  I felt that I had a decent position within the consumer world of 3D because it wasn’t popular yet and the fact that relatively affordable 3D televisions, 3D monitors and 3D Blu-Ray Discs have not been released yet.  The only 3D monitor I was aware of was a Samsung monitor for the computer that Nvidia sold with their 3D Vision products.  I believed Samsung had a larger 3D model but it seemed hard to get and absolutely no content to view with it.  The 3D launch wasn’t too far away and I know prior to the forthcoming major holiday season that some of these items should be available at retailers.  I could feel the 3D wave approaching but it was not here yet.  I enjoyed the moments showing people the V1 and when a viewer figured out and understood how to achieve the viewing angle they thought that it was impressive.  Very few people thought it was unnecessary but they really weren’t 3D advocates and at first had trouble getting the correct viewing position.  The feeling of not needing glasses to see my pictures was great and I could have fun with friends and random viewers.  I started thinking of different things I would like to shoot but I already took well over 30 gigs of pictures and the space was adding up.  The post-production process with these pictures always seemed to take up a lot of time and I now truly realize the commitment that tags along with shooting and viewing 3D.  I knew that the chance of getting more snow was at a very low probability and at least I have completed my initial task of capturing some decent shots of some snow scenery.  I guess it was time to think about shots in the rain instead of the snow or even going to the beach seemed like a great idea.  It was time to get more memory cards and anticipate a change in the coming weather conditions.

The V1 Arrives!!!

The V1 arrives at my door with style from the regular mailman.  The package didn’t come via EMS like the games I usually order from Japan, but it still arrived in an orderly fashion.  I wasn’t sure whether I was more excited about the V1 then I was about the W1 but I knew that playing around with this 3D technology help satisfy my craving for actual 3D.  I opened the package and saw the V1 box that was obviously larger than the W1 box with a similar design.  I pulled it out from the wrappings and plugged it in.  I noticed that the front of the viewer was really glossy and I had to place the ball end of the leg into the back of the frame in order for it to stand correctly.  I inserted my best of snow pictures memory card into the device and pressed the small power button on the back of the 3D photo viewer.  A little sound occurred and the Fuji 3D logo appeared and the pictures started displaying.  The 3D didn’t look right at first because I wasn’t in the proper position.  I realized that this was discerning because if I wasn’t used to the screen of the camera and knew that you had to be at a sweet spot, I probably might have gotten frustrated.  I moved my head around and noticed that I had to be at least a foot or half a meter away with perfect angular alignment in order to achieve the perfect 3D.  It looked amazing at the correct viewing spot.  If I had moved a little out of position the image would appear ripple like and almost inverted.  I pressed the menu button on the viewer and saw that it was all in Japanese.  I thought this might be a problem if I can’t navigate through the menus.  I loaded up the manual on my net book and figured out how to change the language settings.  The seller on eBay mentioned that they could set the language to English but I thought it would not be a problem and it wasn’t.  The manual described that there was three possible angles to achieve the 3D viewing and I will tell you that the main angle wasn’t the easiest to get and the other two were not as good as the center angle.  My snow pictures appeared and I was almost in a trance.  I also read in the manual that I could have some Mp3 files on the memory card that the V1 will play them.  I knew exactly what I wanted to have playing along with my snow pictures.  Earlier that year Sting released a winter album that was very traditional and enjoyable, so I converted that to Mp3 and the album seemed to be almost as if it was meant to be synchronized with my pictures.  I thought to myself that if Sting saw this he would be proud.  After about thirty minutes a disclaimer appeared on the screen saying that I should take a break for health reasons.  I also believed I read somewhere that you shouldn’t have any children with the age of four or below viewing the 3D equipment.  Should these bits of information concern me?  Was this technology tested enough that they had health results from various people and children?  Was I at risk from using all of this 3D equipment?  Will these questions or disclaimers change in the future or even deter people away from the 3D revolution?  Was this investment really worth the effort and money?  I saw some of my greatest snow pictures and I believed it was totally worth it just because I had some perfect 3D pictures.  Now I had a way of showing individuals my pictures without the usage of glasses and they can be viewed the way that they were intended to be.  I was nervous around the picture frame because I knew I couldn’t just pick one up at your local retailer.  They probably won’t have one like this for another four years until the technology gets cheaper and better.  Now all I needed was a case to travel with it and I would be ready to show people on my adventures and truly display my 3D digital pictures to show the beauty of the third dimension!

The Snow 3D Anaglyph Pictures!

Here is some of the best 3D anaglyph snow scenery pictures that I have taken with the W1!!!!

The Massive Snow Storm!

The massive snowstorm was approaching and seeing it coming on the news got me excited because the previous storm was a blast around the time that “Avatar” arrived.  I knew this was my chance to use all of my experience with the W1 to get some decent 3D snow pictures.  I could feel the sensation pulsing threw my veins for the event.  I ran to the grocery store and got stocked up with necessities and filled the cars completely with gas.  I also stopped at the special beverage establishment to prepare to be snowed in.  I got a ride to work as the snow began to fall and it just happened that I had the next couple of days off.  I got I excited like a kid and their first time in a candy store.  I got the batteries charged up when I got home and realized I forgot to get extra memory cards.  It was okay because I had enough room left for some pictures on the current solid-state storage cards.  The morning came and I went outside before noon and started clicking away.  I was cold but every picture was worth the uncomfortable effort.  Not only did the branches make for some great 3D pictures but the fact that snow gave it a monotone look caused me to realized that the anaglyph versions will turn out perfect.  I took pictures until my memory card ran out and went straight to the computer and started converted pictures.  The process was a timely procedure just like any editing or photo correction but it must be completed in order to show what snow scenery looks like in 3D.  I was happy with the turn out and my 3D investment was starting to pay off!

Yeah!....More 3D Pictures!

Here are a few pictures of the people that enjoyed getting their first 3D pictures taken that I encountered on my adventures while frequenting a couple of stores!

Discovering the V1!

I started doing research for a 3D auto stereoscopic picture frame viewer and just happened to stumble upon Fuji’s V1.  The pictures of this seven-inch 3D picture frame seemed unbelievable and a perfect companion for the W1.  I also realized that the W1 was initially sold with the V1 as a regular package and it was an unintentional accident that I got the camera separate from the viewer.  I couldn’t find any reviews on it but I assumed it was just a larger version of the same screen that was on the camera.  The V1 was a little more expensive than the camera and also possessed it’s own wireless technology to communicate with each other.  You could immediately view the 3D pictures without having to remove the card from the camera and put it in the viewer.  I started wondering how cool this would be to have to show people on my travels.  I started reading and watching videos on it but didn’t really now how to order it.  A week passed and I found a good buyer on EBay in Japan and placed the order.  This was probably the most expensive item I ever ordered off of EBay and was concerned about it arriving in good fashion.  I started to daydream about it and knew it had to be great to see the pictures I have been taken on a larger 3D screen.  I decided to start thinking about best of picture collections and getting memory cards just for specific sets of pictures to have ready for the V1 just like I started doing for the regular inexpensive picture viewer that I had purchased previously.  I hope that this almost seven hundred dollar item on the way from Japan was worth every cent!

Geese and More Picture Viewing!

I finally captured some pictures of geese while driving around from my car and was satisfied with the results.  I didn’t get any pictures with them at a lake or some location with water but the fact that it was convenient to just roll up and start clicking away was perfect.  I also took some pictures of some cats and some other random things not from my car.  This was like a new thing to just start randomly taking pictures from my car.  I thought to myself that all I need was some binoculars and I might be considered a stalker.  I guess some rope, shovel, map, some plastic wrap, and a baseball bat wouldn’t be a good idea either.   It was like guerilla photography from my car and I also started to feel like a member of the paparazzi.  The weather outside was still cold and now it was the middle of February I felt like the winter came by so fast that I was going to go crazy.  I went to the local wine, beer, and spirits store around the corner and a game shop and displayed the camera to a bunch of friends.  I took some pictures of them and they were all amazed by the screen of the camera and it was the first time that they were in 3D.  Some of them loved the technology even with having no prior understanding of it, some were skeptical about the 3D revolution and others just flat out became overly excited.  It was kind of fun showing off this new toy before it becomes normal like cell phones.  I liked looking at my friends in 3D because it felt a little more realistic because you get a little more immersed when looking at these 3D Pictures.  This is the same intended effect that movies in 3D seem to try to produce and I know that “Avatar” definitely accomplished that.  I remember when I went to see “Avatar” in 2D a few weeks ago that It was torture knowing what the 3D was like and not being able to see it in 3D made me almost want to leave the theater and walk into a 3D viewing, but I did not do this because I noticed the colors were a little different.  The colors seemed richer and slightly brighter in the non-3D version.  I remember reading articles that the Dolby 3D projection had better or different color variations then other digital 3D projection systems.  I had no way of validating this because I wasn’t sure what kind of Projection Systems that I was seeing but I know that they used RealD glasses (excluding the IMAX version).  It might have been Sony or Texas Instrumental based projection equipment, however I never asked the theater employees about the projectors because it didn’t seem important at the time.  I wasn’t really a fan of projectors as far as the home consumer market is concerned, but to think about a dual projector or even a 4K projector was always mind boggling.  I started wondering about showing my pictures to people again and the only way that I could truly show them was with the screen of the camera.  There had to be a better and somewhat portable way to achieve this so I decided that it was time to investigate this even more thoroughly!

Even More 3D Anaglyph Pictures!

                                   Yes!!!Even more anaglyph 3D Photos for your enjoyment!

A Relapse of the W1!

Here is a few 2D pictures of the W1!