Your very own 3D digital camera
By Trevor Tan, TODAY | Posted: 21 November 2008 1027 hrs

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SINGAPORE : Come August or September next year, your wish might just come true. Fujifilm has developed what it calls the FinePix Real 3D system that will give the world’s first consumer three-dimensional digital camera.

We had a brief hands-on with this revolutionary system in a sneak preview offered by Fujifilm, and were quite impressed.

FinePix Real 3D consists of three components: a 3D digital camera, a 3D viewing system and a 3D printing system.

The prototype 3D camera we played with has two optical lenses, mimicking human eyes, each with its own CCD sensor. The newly-developed Real Photo Processor 3D synchronises the data from both sensors and fuses two images into one, tricking the human eye into seeing the 3D effect.

A “light direction control” module at the back of the LCD on the viewing system controls the direction of light to our right and left eye, enabling 3D viewing without the use of special 3D glasses. The printing system uses a fine-pitch lenticular sheet to produce a multiple-viewpoint 3D print.

The camera is able to take both 3D and 2D images and videos. A press of a button lets you view the 2D and 3D versions of the same image or video. To us, the biggest potential of the dual-lens system of the 3D camera is in 2D photos. For example, you can shoot simultaneous telephoto and wide-angle images, and ultra-wide panoramas in real time. Or, you can shoot video and still pictures with different exposure settings at the same time.

Fujifilm’s keeping mum on pricing. Stay tuned for more updates.

- TODAYrose