More than two decades ago, Fujifilm was one of the first camera manufacturers to see the future of photography was digital. Today, Fujifilm is one of the industry's also-rans, with just a 6.7% market share.There's one way to get back into the game: invent new rules. That's just what Fujifilm plans to do later this year when it unveils the world's first 3-D digital camera for consumers. The company hopes that its groundbreaking new gadget — tentatively named the FinePix Real 3D System — will allow it to leapfrog the competition by bringing 3-D capabilities to the masses, at the same time putting a little buzz back into the business of taking snapshots.
It was not much bigger or heavier than some conventional digicams. The most obvious difference is that Fuji's 10-megapixel shooter employs two lenses, spaced about the same distance apart as human eyes, which allow for the taking of simultaneous photos of the same scene from different angles. This is where the 3-D magic originates. When two slightly different images are presented discretely to the right and left eyes of a viewer, that person's brain combines them into a single image, resulting in a stereoscopic illusion of depth.
In the past, special viewing accessories such as 3-D glasses or stereoscopes were needed for this to work. Not so with Fujifilm's system, which offers two viewing options. One is a 3-D digital picture frame — an eight-inch (20 cm) LCD screen that directs the dual images to the left and right eyes, creating the 3-D effect. The other option is 3-D prints, which are made with a clear plastic overlay that acts as a kind of 3-D lens.
Both methods produce snapshots in which the central subjects appear to pop off the screen or print.
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