32. Get a digital stereo camera that will take action shots.
November 8, 2006: My twin Sony Cybershot DSC-P200 arrived today, from Co van Ekeren in the Netherlands. I'm very excited by this, and my initial test shots are just fine. Truly this camera isn't really well optimised for flash though, so I need to find some daylight to take some pics in.
Why did it take so long? The P200 is no longer made, and its successor cameras are not as well suited to twinning. Unusually, this camera has the lens on one side of the body, and both the memory card slot and the power at the other side, nice and accessible even when twinned. So Co asked me to procure two cameras on eBay and then send them to him; he twinned them and returned the dual camera. This got me the twin at a super bargain basement price. I mean, still pretty scary, but probably not much more than a commercial stereo digital camera would cost. It's coming, mark my words.
The killer app for consumer stereo digital: this little twin makes movies. I can make 3d movies by, essentially, hitting record and pointing the camera at things. Stereo Movie Maker, the movie partner of Stereo Photo Maker, makes turning the two clips into a single stereo movie very easy. Windows only, and you'd better believe that if I didn't have a PC in the house I'd be emulating on an Intel Mac for this one thing.
Of course a single stereo camera would do all of this as in-camera post-processing. But until we get that, this is pretty much the next best thing. It's small too; large for a pocket camera, but smaller than an SLR.
Anyhow; this is finished; I just have to take some photos now.
August 1, 2006: Mmm. Very expensive, this. There are two approaches at the moment. One is a phenomenally clever beamsplitter and viewer that fits onto an existing camera but without the faults of the 3D Lens-in-a-Cap, which I already have. The second is lovingly hand-soldered pairs of digital cameras, with full power, shutter and zoom sync. I have emailed the man who makes the second sort to find out how much they would cost. So this is started, but I do feel rather guilty.