When Stereo 3D practitioners are asked about the S3D camera of the future, they almost always expect more of what they have, for less money. I don't think that is what they are going to get.
My wild guess, as wild as a grizzly bear and every bit as ornery, is that two big changes are on the way, one for the low end budget and one for the Hollywood blockbuster budget.
On the low end, I suspect without any evidence to back me up that the GoPro 3D development crew is working on a specialized, unitary S3D rig. The company was conspicuously silent about the absence of a 3D housing for its Hero3, but they haven't announced any abandonment of S3D, either. I think they are going to surprise everybody with a rig that allows interaxial adjustment automatically linked to focal length adjustment, coupled with offset of image placement on the sensors, in a watertight housing, for a price point less than one thousand dollars. I think the user will be able to monitor the setup through an Oculus Rift and control the camera through an iPad. I think this will blow wide open the production of Indie S3D.
By contrast, I suspect that development on the high end, for blockbuster projects, will make shooting S3D more like shooting the 2D with which people in the industry are most familiar. I think such a camera will use a dual lens fixed separation system, with an integral depth recorder rig. The depth recording rig will use the light field technology of the Lytro cameras to register depth information which will be synthesized by software into a full depth field for the entire range of parallax between the two lenses set about 100 mm apart. The stereo movie will be created in post production, by joining the imagery with the depth information at any desired interaxial distance equal to or less than 100mm. The price point? At least as expensive as the best mirror rig on the market, but the system will include a full post production suite.
Ironically, the most stereographically adept movies will be low budget Indies. The S3D Indie filmmakers will define the new cinema tropes of the new medium, while traditional blockbuster movie makers will continue to make FX laden 2D movies with 3D as just another special effect. The two approaches will be on even footing regarding technical quality of both the imagery and the 3D, meaning that the contest between them will become one of style.
The market is trusted to differentiate but I don't think that is the way the contest will play out. Indies and blockbusters don't vie for screen exposure or box office receipts, they battle for dominance of style, and the new always wins. The young movie makers who use budget equipment will create the new styles that land them bigger budget projects financed by studios.
Eventually, stereo 3D will fulfill its promise as a new mainstream medium with new creative possibilities.
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