Fad!

No seriously, I could see more acceptance and use for this in the long run than other uses of 3D...

As an owner of a 3D camera, I'd say that I am keen on the idea of new tech in this area. I've seen a lot of instructions on how to cobble something together with two cameras, so having a unit which does the job is fascinating.

No, it's not a fad. It's something which has been done since the dawn of photography. However, the cynic in me does see this as a way to flog 3D TVs. Right now, I'm messing around with coloured filters and stereoscopic lenses. It's good fun!

3D photography is a specialist area and I doubt that the average person will want to do it often if ever. Though a few pros will definitely want to use this.

It’s tricky. The consumer level camera I have is very fixed. You can’t, for example, control the convergence of the lenses. You perceive depth and distance that way. The lenses on the camera are set to “converge” at a certain distance, so items can appear to poke out of the image towards you. This can make for some quite dramatic images, but it’s locked down.

A decent pro camera should let you control this. It should also let you extract the left/right images for your own use.

The Sony camera is post processing - so it takes a single image and no doubt extrapolates depth from it somehow. A proper 3D camera would have two lenses set apart the distance the average human eyes are apart, to give you a proper left and right image. Overlay these images using some method (anaglyphs, stereoscopic lenses) and you get a proper 3D image. I’m not convinced by the post processing methodology.

The Fuji camera I have is pretty decent, despite it’s limitations. You can also get lenses to attach to a DSLR which does the same job - you get left and right images on a single shot. You can even get some kind of whacky lens system to olt onto video cameras. All of these use the “you have two eyes so you need two separate pictures” methodology.