Fujifilm Finepix Real 3D W3

Got a 3D TV but don’t have much to show on it? This camera provides the chance to make your own 3D pictures and video.

It’s an update to last year’s W1 3D camera and has two lenses, each with a 3x optical zoom, and two 10-megapixel sensors. Slide open the lens cover to turn it on, hit the shutter button and it takes two shots, automatically combining them to provide a 3D depth effect.

You can use the camera’s sharp 3.5in widescreen rear display to view the 3D results without any special glasses. Alternatively software is provided for viewing on a PC. On a standard screen you will see two separate images but Fujifilm promises compatibility with any current 3D TV over the camera’s HDMI connection for the full 3D effect.

Because of the extra ingredients the W3 is bulkier than the average camera, but smaller than its predecessor. It squeezes into a jacket pocket and weighs a manageable 230g without battery or SD memory card. It’s much more sophisticated than Aiptek’s alternative (see below).

The lenses are placed wider apart than the average human eyes, at either edge of the camera’s faceplate. Because of their location it’s too easy for fingertips to obscure at least part of a lens when holding the camera in both hands. The result is a distracting blob at the corner of the eventual frame, but this can be avoided with practice.

Of course it’s also possible to take standard 2D pictures, with a dedicated button for swapping between formats. It can shoot decent high-definition video in the 720p resolution in 2D or 3D, and with stereo sound, but the zoom lens cannot be used for shooting video.

We found that shooting in the 3D mode changed the way we composed pictures. It worked best if there were points of interest in foreground, middle and background of the photographs. This drew our eyesight through the lens and forced us to give pictures the kind of depth people expect from 3D. For shooting relatively flat subjects such as the front of a building, doing so at a slight angle helped.

As it sounds, this is a camera that requires some experimentation to get the best results. The £399 manufacturer’s price tag is high, the 3D effect is still a bit of a gimmick requiring other expensive equipment, but it works well.

Below is an image we took with the W3. If you have a 3D-capable computer, you can download the Fujifilm My Finepix Studio software from here and then click here to download the 3D version of the image to see how they compare.