Meduza camera gets NASA invite

UK: Following its debut at NAB, 3D Visual Enterprises’ Meduza camera, billed as the first single beyond 4K digital stereoscopic 3D camera, has been invited by NASA to shoot the final Space Shuttle launch at Cape Canaveral in mid-July.

The Meduza will shoot the launch in 4K 3D and in 2K High Speed. “We are very excited to have the opportunity to work with NASA,” says CEO, Chris Cary. “This opportunity exemplifies the Meduza’s versatility and flexibility and supports our interest in developing many valuable and critical applications for the camera in industries outside film and television.”

With its modular components, 3D Visual Enterprises claims that the Meduza can be set up in minutes, not hours. The camera boasts interchangeable lenses, precise remote controlled variable inter-axial, and precise remote controlled convergence (“features non-existent on Sony and Panasonic models,” crows a statement). It is a single camera, with a single set of electronics and a single set of controls that powers two imaging sensors at the same time, and all in all weighs less than 6.8kg.

The company is entertainingly dismissive of current 3D rigs and camcorders. “Films currently produced in 3D are generally shot with two cameras linked together with stereoscopic grip equipment or two cameras sandwiched in one camera body with very little control or synchronisation,” it says, before then providing a killer quote from Jonathan Kitzen, President of Meduza Systems: “A simple analogy would be if you glue two motorcycles together, this does not make a car.

“While left eye and right eye images are generated using two cameras, many more new problems are created, which must then be corrected in post-production, leading to data loss, image aberration, time and expense,” he adds.