The Argus/Loreo
You cannot spend much time studying stereo photography without
encountering the various Argus/Loreo stereo camera variants. The cameras are basically
very clever beam-splitter designs which I had tended to dismiss because I really didn't
like my 35mm Pentax beam-splitter and I found the vertical format to be a bit challenging.
However, one Christmas I was given a new Loreo camera and, much to my surprise, despite
some obvious limitations, I enjoyed using the camera. The samples below serve to highlight
some of the strengths and weaknesses of this very affordable camera. All are supported by
the Stereoscope applet and can be displayed by just clicking on
the thumbnail you want to view. If you don't know how Stereoscope
works, see my Site
Viewing Options page.
The is a cute little camera and, given it's low cost, there is no reason not to have one in you camera bag for casual photography. In case you are curious as to how the side-by-side prints were handled to produce the JPS stereo pairs shown here, the following steps were employed:
(1) When you pick up the side-by-side prints from the processor, either freeview them or use a viewer to verify that you have a good stereo pair.
(2) Scan the print
(3) Save the image as a JPG file. Use minimal compression or the highest possible print quality to avoid compression artifacts.
(4) Use Windows Explorer or DOS to rename the file as a JPS file. For example, is the original file was test.jpg, you would rename the file test.jps.
(5) Use a stereo image editor program to fine tune the alighnment, stereo window, and image size, saving the result.
At this point the image can be incorporated into web pages using either Depth Charge or the Petersik Stereo Java Applet. In the "old days", running W95/98, I would have used the Depth Charge Developer Studeo from
VREX as my editor. However, neither that program (which is no longer available or supported) or any of their current software will run on advanced versions of Windows, including WindowsXP. Fortunately, a nice stereo editor program (StereoPhoto Maker ) is available that will do the job.Ralph E. Taggart (Gyrobee@msu.edu)