Two Sony CX550V camcorders with wide-angle lenses attached

I was on my way to bed tonight when I decided to do some 3D experiments using my dual Sony CX550V camcorder setup (which I am putting into an underwater housing soon). The two camcorders are mounted on plates and rails from Really Right Stuff, and both also have Sony 0.75x wide-angle adapters attached to them. The stereo base (inter-ocular distance) is 67mm.

I recorded a few seconds of video, transcoded the AVCHD into ProRes 422 LT, and imported the clips into Final Cut Pro. It was my first test with Dashwood Cinema Solution’s Stereo3D Toolbox v2, and I relied heavily on the tutorials they’ve put online in order to put left and right video clips together into sequences that I could preview dynamically in side-by-side mode or by using anaglyph (red/cyan) glasses. For my first tests, I adjusted convergence using the Stereo3D Geometry video filter, which offers sliders for adjusting pretty much every geometry attribute in both left and right eyes.

In the images below, you can see screen grabs of video converged at different points in the frame: the music stand in the front, the front of the table, the fruit on the table, and the back wall. As you view images with convergence points further and further back, you’ll notice some of the elements (like the front of the table) start to stick out in front of the screen.

Note that I didn’t physically converge the cameras with toe-in convergence. Instead, I adjusted convergence in post production. This sort of convergence results in a loss of image in the right and left sides of the frame, but when I have my anaglyph 3D glasses on, I can’t really tell.

3D frame grab from video converged on the music stand

3D frame grab from video converged on the front of the table

3D frame grab from video converged on the butternut squash on the table

Side view of 3D test area (music stand, table, entrance to hallway)

You can download the full-sized images for a better look.