3D Technology: Parallax Film’s Beamer EX – a stereoscopic rig like none other.

After many blog posts chronicling its inception, the time has finally come to detail la mini beam splitter rig de resistance.

Meet Beamer EX Stereoscopic Rig, a Parallax Film Productions exclusive, designed and assembled by our stereographer Sean White.

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With two successful 3D shoots in the can, our Beamer has proven a force to be reckoned with in the field – portable, rugged, and a damn good shooter.

And pretty easy on the eyes, don’t you think?

Here’s the Beamer breakdown:

– Custom built aluminum beam splitter chassis integrated with 15mm rods and components

– Designed for two Sony EX3 cameras for perfect genlock and time code sync

– HDSDI signals from both cameras recorded to Convergent Designs nanoFlash 3D at up to 280 mbps

– Precise monitoring and alignment with 6″ Transvideo CineMonitorHD 3D View

– Easy to setup and transport

– Switches from tripod to handheld shooting and back in seconds

– Adjustable interaxial distance from 0-100mm

– Calibrated camera heights from base mounts

– Floating 4-point micro adjustment screws for perfect mirror alignment

– Single Anton Bauer Dionic battery on Goldmount powers the monitor and both nanoFlashes

–Ian Herring, President

@ianherring

Shooting a 3D Documentary: Sony EX3s on Custom Designed Rig Get The Job Done

Production of Battle Castle is fast underway. It’s a documentary series that brings the world’s greatest medieval strongholds to life and we’ve kicked it off shooting 3D in Kent England, on the grounds of the magnificent Dover Castle.

Packing wisdom gathered from taking Blowdown 3D from production through post, we’ve optimized our beam-splitter rig for this new terrain to avoid the issues (and limitations) we had to work with during our first journey into the third dimension.

The result: one self-contained system that can capture almost everything we need.

Here’s the breakdown:

We’ve chosen to mount 2 Sony EX3s over the Canon 7Ds to avoid genlock issues we were experiencing with the Canons.

The EX3s are great, gold standard cameras and can output a clean signal straight to our Nano3D drives.

We’ve also reconfigured the sliders for more interaxial play and attached customized attachments so we can vertically hang cameras without ripping out the hot shoe mount.

We used red-rock micro components along with some custom parts to fine-tune the hand-held splitter.

Altogether it weighs 45 lbs meaning a strong DoP can hold it for 4-5 minutes before taking a break.

Well worth the effort when it means you have freedom.

Limitation worth noting – the EX3s can’t capture vista shots where the subject is faraway. We fill this gap by using a pair of Canon 5Ds on a side-by-side rig to capture these types of shots.

So what it comes down to is we now have a system with perfect sync, beautiful capture, flexibility, and portability.

What more could you ask for?

–Ian Herring, President

@ianherring