Fujifilm's New Real 3-D Camera

Recently, Fujifilm announced a two-lensed camera that takes image and movies in 3-D and capture wide-angle photos of single senses simultaneously. As a result we've heard some rumbling in the wires about the other camera manufacturers coming out with their own version in the next year.

The lenses are 6-7 cm from each other. That means the same length between most people's eyes, the Real 3-D's camera processes the images in real time to produce the stereoscopic trick effect that makes them look as if they're floating in air.

There are several 3-D custom rigs out there that are producing 3-d images, but they are usually very expensive. Some have even made 3-D rigs out of two mainstream digital cameras. In the case of the 3-D Advantage, Casio, a company has attached a tri-delta beam splitter to a single point-and-shoot camera that creates a 3-D image with single shutter. But a pro-ready camera ready to shoot 3-D images is better than a custom rig, for obvious user-friendly reasons.

So while majority of the renewed excitement about 3-D imaging has come from the display side and recent focus from the movie industry, don't expect Fujifilm to be the only one coming out with a consumer 3-D cam.

The chip blends the dual images and all the important metrics (focus, zoom range and exposure) at once and pushes them out to the LCD, which is also on a 3-D display. By the time this camera is released next year, the company is promising to be able to shoot HD video on it as well.

This all are the symptoms that camera makers are jumping into the 3-D photo market.