This dual Yashica Minitec was my workhorse camera way back in the 1990s. Built after I lost the dual Nikon setup in a snowboarding accident, the Minitec provided easy access to its electronics for synchronized shooting and good enough slides for individual viewing. In 1997 I even got a waterproof housing for these two cameras and did some exciting photos both on the French Atlantik and Hawaiaan NorthShore. Overall shooting experience with the two Yashica Minitec is excellent, thanks to their size easy to carry and quick to shoot.
Still in the 1990s I needed to get superior image quality compared to the Yashica in order to show the results to my friends at Stereo NewEngland. In the 90s the Realist, some odd russian cameras and German were used by the club, but my dual Pentax setup with the 24mm wide angle lenses achieved their applause as well as many questions. Some of them objected the distance between the lenses, but this exactly proved favorable for the shooting of street scenes and buildings. This horizontal setup traveled quite a bit on trips to Europe and Hawaii.
This setup was short lived since these cameras though very compact proved difficult to sync and were costly in batteries while the image quality remained inferior to the Minitec.
Here is another low cost setup with two small cameras, and again, thow they have a nice wide angle fixed focus lens, the image quality still inferior to the Yashica Minitec.
In 2001 I had some time to tinker with my Canon 1n, featured here is the dual 28mm setup. While excellent in image quality and easy to synchronize by external electronic shutter release, the main disadvantage of this combo is its weight and the distance between the lenses which made it difficult to use on near-field objects.
In the early 2000s this Canon EOS equipment made some good stereophotos, while again the bulkiness prevented it from being used often. The 18mm super-wide-angle proved more difficult to operate than its images were rewarding. I found that the far distance between the lenses make nice landscape pictures, but are not really suitable for my preferred shooting of closer subjects.
These two Samurai have the ideal distance of 65 millimeters between the lenses and thanks to the reflex finder, they even provide real-time 3D-viewing while shooting. If only the resulting half-format slides would have been easier to present. So this one is history as well.
Here comes the first digital combo, like the professional Canon, these Casio can easily actived by remote cable control, with good synchronization. However, in practical shooting the slow autofocus made it sometimes difficult to catch other than static scenary.
Analog film is not dead yet. This combination of two identical high quality ultra-wide lenses on the voigtländer by Cosina made some eyes pop, but once again, wide angle needs lenses close together and only vertical setup - horizontal shown here - reduces the distance to some 80 mm.
Another digital setup actived by remote control. Digital motor zoom cameras are almost impossible to use other than in their wide-angle position. So here I have two very powerful Schneider lenses on the Samsung NV7, this setup is very compact and finaly replaces the old Minitec.
Speaking of the Yashica Minitec, here is the external electronics revealed to sync them.
In 2010 things get interesting, depending on demand there will be more diverse cameras coming, for both stereo-HD-video and stereoscopic photography.
Everything digital now, here's the Canon 1D Mark II with the dual 50mm killer setup for landscape shooting. Stereo base is 20 cm roughly, excellent views on houses and larger objects in the distance.
