Kula KD1D77 Deeper 3D Lens for Camera Black

This elegantly designed and constructed beam splitter is basically a modern equivalent of those that were offered some 50 or more years ago by prestigious companies such as Pentax, Zeiss and others, for 35mm still cameras.It arrived, securely packed, well before the expected delivery date, along with the other designated items. These were a soft pouch to contain the splitter when not in use, a soft cleaning cloth, a basic instruction booklet, two pairs of anaglyph glasses and a 3D viewer that is similar in design and construction to the Loreo Lite stereo card viewer.Several things are immediately apparent. The design has unprotected mirrors that are not glass, but highly polished aluminium. It will be interesting to see how much dust etc collects on the mirrors (minus one star).Although not stated in the Amazon advert, this splitter is designed to fit on to a ∅77 mm lens fitting. Step-up ring(s) will be needed if your lens is below this size.Attach the splitter by screwing it onto your lens and use the screw on the top plate to lock it into position. Instructions clearly state that the splitter has to be perfectly lined up with you lens before use. Failure to do this will result in stereo pairs that lozenge shaped and cannot be viewed or edited. This attachment cannot be used on any lens where the front element rotates as it zooms or focuses. I will be constructing a plate to run from the tripod bush on the bottom of the camera forward to the underneath of the beam splitter. This means that the splitter cannot move out of alignment during the rough and tumble of a photo shoot.I started by seeing just what this beam splitter could achieve using a DSLR, with a full frame 24-mega-pixel sensor was placed on a tripod. Two lenses were used, the zoom lens that came the camera, and a 50mm f1.4 prime lens from an independent manufacturer.Look at the viewfinder, or screen. You will notice that there are now two side-by-side images that are almost the identical. The height remains the same as normal, but the width is halved. This is your stereo pair. As a result your normal ratio of 4:3 or 16:9 alters to the under square ratio of 2:3 or 8:9, roughly the same as the original Victorian stereo cards. At wide apertures f1.8 or f2, there is a large indistinct area between the two halves. This is normal and decreases as the aperture is increased. I found that f11 was a satisfactory balance between having a small indistinct centre area, and an easily useable aperture and shutter speed. Increase your ISO value to allow you to work at a small aperture if required. Using this splitter does not affect the automatic focusing and exposure controls.The stereo base (the distance between the mirrors) is stated to be around 10.5 cm. However 6.5 cm is regarded at the normal separation, so this splitter produces hyper stereos. The often-misquoted 1 in 30 rule states that the nearest object should be no closer than 30 times the stereo base. In theory this means that the closet object should be about 3 metres away. It is possible to work at a distance of just 1m, but at this distance it is impossible to place the subject behind the stereo window. Increasing the distance to 2m resulted in a stereo pair where the nearest object could be placed behind the stereo window, but only by reducing the width of the image. As expected, everything worked perfectly at a distance of 3m and above.This beam splitter has been designed to work with lenses of standard focal length, 50 mm in my case. However I wanted to test just how short a focal length could be used. At 28mm there is severe vignetting with the frame of the splitter clearly visible in the image. This effect decreases as the focal length is increased, and for my camera and lenses disappeared at 37mm. This was found to be the case for when working in both 4:3 and 16:9 format.Processing the images is quite simple. Kula have developed a simple programme to run on the Linux, Windows and Mac platforms. Downloading it from their website and using it allows the 3D image to be viewed in many different ways. However I use StereoPhoto Maker. This open source programme is only available for the Windows platform, but is much more sophisticated, allowing any type of 3D files to opened, edited, and finally saved or printed in all the known ways that 3D photographers use. Its programmer has been awarded many accolades from around the world. Use the open source programme StereoMovie Maker to edit your movie.Experiment with all the ways of viewing 3D pictures, either on screen, projected, or as one of the multitude of printed forms. Be prepared to purchase viewing aides to enjoy them.I use StereoPhoto Maker to correct or edit the 3D images before printing them in View-Magic format, viewing via a View-Magic viewer, and in Holmes (Victorian) card format viewing via an OWL viewer. I also use this programme to generate .MPO files that are fed into a 3D TV, and make side-by side images that have a white border for viewing on 2D monitors, viewing them using prism glasses.Purchase and use this splitter with confidence. Consider joining a stereoscopic society, club or group as the chances are that no one in your local photographic club will know anything about 3D, or indeed be interested in it, but national and international groups exist. Many publish a quarterly magazine, and meet at regular intervals. Some hold conventions lasting several days. Others are Internet based. A cornucopia of help, suggestions, and encouragement is available from their members for anyone new to the wonderful world of 3D photography.