As a disclaimer, let me say that I am a fan of 3D. I have a Stereo Realist film camera from the 50s and regret that I did not take more pictures with it back when you could get Kodak to mount them for you. I still love to look at the ones that I have. There is no more vivid memory than a picture you feel you can actually step into.

That said, I would warn any non-3D fan away from this new camera. You cannot think of it as a 2D camera with a nice extra of 3D. Nor is it a general purpose walk around camera. Unfortunately for Fuji, this is a camera that will only really satisfy fans of 3D imaging. And even for us, it does provide some disappointments.

The camera is, of necessity, a little odd looking. It is, after all, two... two... two cameras in one. It has two lenses, two sensors and probably other duplications I don't know about. But it is not a large camera even so. A large pocket will swallow it right up. You turn it on by sliding the front cover down, and unfortunately the only way to turn it off is to slide that cover back up. So if you're reviewing pictures with the lens cover closed, you have to slide it open and then closed again. No biggie, but a slight irritation.

At first, the 3D effect is underwhelming. Until you actually learn to view the images on the rear LCD they have that cadrboard cutout look, with distinct 2D planes and not much connective tissue. But as you teach yourself to look at them, the images start to take on a more natural appearance. I now find them fascinating to look at. But again, I am a 3D fan.

Aside from the usual adjustments available on any P&S, the W1 has a parallax adjustment. In auto parallax mode, it appears to try and align the images at the focus point, and in general this works pretty well. You can adjust this (like exposure comp) at the time of capture, but also afterward. You can even have the camera record a new picture from the old one with the new parallax setting if you don't like your original choice.

3D pictures are recorded in Fuji's proprietary MPO (multi-picture) format. Amazingly, there is already 3rd party support for this format from a free program called Stereo Picture Maker. This utility allows you to create side by side stereo images that you can view on any monitor using a variety of techniques including the cross-eyed technique and its variants where you de-focus your eyes and let the two images converge into one 3D image. I have just started to play with this but it seems to work very well on even a regular monitor. I don't know much about the new nVidia 3D monitors, but they seem oriented to 3D gamers. I'd like to know more.

I also have the V1 viewer, but so far haven't worked with it very long. It's AC powered using a wall wart, which is too bad, since it would be nice to have it more portable. It uses a lenticular screen (they say) and the trick for me seems to be the distance at which you view it, not just the angle. At first I tried looking at it from 12-15 inches away and it made be dizzy. At more like 2 feet it was much more natural and comfortable. The IR connection to the camera didn't work at all for me. So I used the SD card from the camera to display the images. A variety of slide show modes are available, which I probably won't use.

All in all, this is a really fun device. For the money, you can get a much better 2D camera. No question. Were I more rational, I would have waited for the various refinements and fixes that would normally follow an initial effort like this. But frankly I felt there was a good chance that the camera would be a marketing failure and die like most other 3D products. So I wanted to make sure I got it while it was still available, not used five years later on eBay for three times the price. This camera may well become an orphan oddity.

My own ideal viewer would be a pair of LCD stereo goggles, like the old 3D film viewers. Those provide a really immersive experience, which is part of the fun of 3D. Fuji is naturally trying to make viewing 3D a more familiar and less solitary experience, but some of the impact is necessarily lost as a result.

If you really like 3D I can recommend this camera. If not, I doubt you have read this far.

-wick