Content area
Full Text
Remember when home VCRs first became affordable and everyone was trying to figure out how to get their photos onto videotape? That's when Tamron introduced the original Fotovix--a tabletop device that looked and acted like a slide duplicator. It let you zoom in, color correct, rotate, even sandwich slides or negatives together. But instead of being a copying attachment for SLRs, the Fotovix hooked directly to a video camera or VCR making it easy to produce video slide shows.
Today, digital imaging computers are selling like hotcakes, and many of us are trying to figure out how to get our existing photos onto our computers. Once again, it's Tamron to the rescue with the Fotovix IIIS-D ($1,199), a device that combines a video camera, 3X zoom lens, and an analog-to-digital (A/D) converter. It lets you scan color slides, negatives, or black-and-white film directly into a computer, grab images from live and recorded video, and even capture small 3-D objects--all this while retaining the ability of early models to record images onto videotape.
The Fotovix IIIS-D was designed for users wanting to digitize images for use in computer applications like World Wide Web page design, e-mail, and cataloging photo collections. The unit's highest resolution, 640x480 pixels, is ideal for multimedia applications and for scanning elements for a photo collage, but fairly low for image retouching.
The Fotovix IIIS-D comes with Macintosh and PC software, cables, and connectors. Software for both platforms includes a separate driver program and Photoshop Plug-in (which lets you operate the Fotovix IIIS-D from within Photoshop and other compatible software programs). Both drivers offer a full range of analog controls (see photo) similar in function to those found on a normal TV, plus controls for choosing film type and external input.
If you don't have a separate video monitor hooked up to the Fotovix, the only way you can adjust zoom, color, brightness, and focus "live" is while looking at the small preview image on the screen, or using a preview feature called Real Picture Zone (RPZ). This latter feature allows you to select...