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Yesterday's panoramic photo thread reminded me of another almost-like-you're-actually-there-technique I've been curious about for some time, but haven't gotten around to exploring yet: 3D photography - or more accurately: stereo photography. Ever since I was a child I've been fascinated by the almost magical qualities of Stereoscopes and Viewmasters, which I guess historically are the most common forms of 3D still pictures (basically, as you probably know, the effect is achieved by simultaneously taking two pictures, one from the viewpoint of each eye, usually by means of a camera equipped with two lenses, and then looking at them side by side - left eye sees left picture, right eye sees the right one.) For some reason I find that looking at these pictures you get a much stronger sense of the place and the time than you get from ordinary photographs. Thus a fun and fascinating way to document the world around you as well as to generally experiment, plus it would seem a nice gift idea. Well, the stereoscopes were popular in the late 19th century, and the Viewmaster seems to slowly have crept into toys'r'us-oblivion since their hayday in the mid 20th century, alas there doesn't seem to be much choice for anyone wanting to have some fun with 3d photography these days, which is somewhat strange in these days of disposable "panoramic" holiday cameras, digital shooting and photoshopping. Granted, there are lots of ways you can DIY the whole process, and there are hobbyist sites and equipment like basic image splitting lenses that replicate the stereocameras of yesteryear (which, btw, you can of course still find in second hand stores), but I'm wondering if there are any really easy ways of getting what I'm aiming at - in other words: what's today's equivalent of shooting with a stereocamera and having the roll developed into a viewmaster slide? Has anyone here tried their hands on any sort of 3D-photography? What about them pictures that look blurry until you put on your silly red/green plastic glasses, presumably those should be internet sharable - is that worth looking into, or am I right in suspecting that the 3D-effect of those is just not quite "there"? /spammin' and junkin', it would seem, according to the forum categories... |
3D photography
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CHAKA 245 posts
Seen 4 years ago
Registered 18 years ago -
I work with a guy that's been doing 3D photography for over 20 years. He has a rig for 2 SLR cameras (DSLR these days) with similar lenses (often primes), situated approx. 7cm from each other and more important, mounted in exact parallel position.
He displays the stuff in lots of ways, from tiny binocular style viewers to ones in carton that you can unfold yourself to huge 3x3m mirror-based solutions.
The red-green doesn't really work according to him, since genuine greens and reds get distoreted in the final view. His favourite method is using polarizing glasses and shooting two images from two projectors using polarizing filters. That way, as long as you don't tilt your head, you see one picture and one only with each of your eyes.
The most advanced way I know of is a pair of specs with active LCD crystals, that are synchronized to a computer, which displays 2 pictures at a high rate, say 50-60Hz. It's also been used by the T2 3D people (with James Cameron) in the US a few years ago and it works great, except you get an headache after a while because of the flickering. ASUS had an Nvidia gfx-card 5 years ago that used those specs.
I bet there's lots of info on the subject to be googled up. -
CHAKA 245 posts
Seen 4 years ago
Registered 18 years agoCheers, Valli, good the hear how those in the know do it. Though as you've probably gathered I'm looking for a middle ground sowewhere between Industrial Light and Magic-shenanigans and thoroughly magic deprived plastic glasses... I've been googling about it, and there's indeed lots of stuff about creating 3D-photography, yet it's also quite a jungle out there, mostly seemingly requiring more learning, time and enthusiasm than I'm sure I'm up for atm tbh. -
It's impressive stuff, you suddenly become like a kid again when you see those shots in full glory! =)
The cheapest way, that also looks absolutely convincing, is to load a camera (any camera) with a slide film. Rig the camera on a good tripod and mark on the ground the position of the tripod. Take a shot, move the tripod exactely sideways (not back or forth) around 7cm and take another shot. You can then develop the slides, put them in frames and load them in a 3d slide viewer which you should be able to find at flea markets, etc.
The picture has to be of still life, since moving objects will change position between the shots. Nature things like moving trees in the wind, water, etc. will also mess up the effect so beware! The closer things are to the camera, the more important is that you get the position right. A slight move (as slight as when you press the shutter button) could destroy the 3D effect of something very close to the camera. -
Cool rhythm, I'll take a look at the shops here, usually they're late meaning I could still get last month's issue.
Was it something like this? The camera manufacturers have had these splitters for years. -
urban 13,148 posts
Seen 4 days ago
Registered 17 years agowow
love that shot alot.
lol she does that and i do this ...
throughly had
*doh* -
CHAKA 245 posts
Seen 4 years ago
Registered 18 years agovalli wrote:
Was it something like this? The camera manufacturers have had these splitters for years.
Does anyone here have any experience with one of these? And rhythm, what did they generally think about it in that article, in terms of thumbs up/down? -
terminalterror 18,932 posts
Seen 6 days ago
Registered 20 years agoThe simplist technique if you can master it (not too simple) is the 'cross your eyes (some parts nsfw)' technique. Trick it to focus on your finger and move it about until you can line up a fairly obvious point on both pictures, then focus on the pictures without losing the crossed eyes. -
CHAKA 245 posts
Seen 4 years ago
Registered 18 years agolol, for a sec there I thought you were pullling our legs, but it does (kind of) work! Too much eye-crossing effort for it to be really enjoyable, though... -
CHAKA! wrote:
lol, for a sec there I thought you were pullling our legs, but it does (kind of) work! Too much eye-crossing effort for it to be really enjoyable, though...
I can do it quite easily now, but it took me about 10 minutes to get the technique.
Those rotating 3D models are great!
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