Ok, this is a fluff piece. I enjoy fooling around with 3D, so I thought I’d shoot a bit of 3D magic with a setup I saw on one of the forums. Probably FTF. Sorry for forgetting who showed it.
I bought a set of Adorama macro rails pretty cheaply on fredmiranda.com a couple of years ago. I don;t use them often, but they are indispensible for close macro work and product shooting. With a powerful lens set to closest focus, it is trivial to dial the whole rig back and forth until perfect focus is achieved. With magnified live view, there is no excuse for a lack of precision.
Of course, this shoot is a very different animal … place the F300EXR in the rig by attaching a spare lens plate to its bottom, then align it to where the shot should go (I got lazy and did a half-assed job) and finally shoot. To shoot the two images needed for stereo viewing, you shoot one and then dial the image to the right by a few centimeters and then shoot again.
Here is that setup …
![DSCF4851_setup[1]](http://letkeman.net/Photos/albums/f300exr_images/DSCF4851_setup.jpg "DSCF4851_setup[1]")
You can see it moved around two centimeters … just enough to focus on one side of the tiny statue and then on the other.
Next, you take the two images and place them on the same image side by side (don’t accidentally swap left for right here) and leave a black band in between of something like a centimeter or less. Enough so crossing the eyes is comfortable. Here is that image and I find it really easy to lock in a 3D image.
![DSCF0404_f300_3D[1]](http://letkeman.net/Photos/albums/f300exr_images/DSCF0404_f300_3D.jpg "DSCF0404_f300_3D[1]")
Edit: Bill’s been busting my chops down below in the comments about reversing the order of the images … left on the right and right on the left. Well, I should not have doubted him on that … his research skills exceed my own and he is dead right. Here is that version, and the 3D effect is much more pronounced and easier to achieve and hold. Sheesh :-)
And finally … a trick I learned somewhere on the forums. I can create an animated gif with the main subject aligned, then swap frames quickly and your brain will see the image in 3D. I showed it before with a real hacked attempt … this time it aligns very closely. Way cool … again, click through for the larger one.
![DSCF0404_3d_animation[1]](http://letkeman.net/Photos/albums/f300exr_images/DSCF0404_3d_animation.gif "DSCF0404_3d_animation[1]")
4 comments:
Kim wrote:
> Next, you take the two images and place them on the same image side by side (don’t accidentally swap left for right here) and leave a black band in between of something like a centimeter or less. Enough so crossing the eyes is comfortable. Here is that image and I find it really easy to lock in a 3D image.
Yes, it's easy to lock in, but you've got the images reversed. :)
If I cross my eyes (the normal 3D viewing method) I can get the images to overlap, but the scene appears flat. If I diverge my eyes instead (and this is much harder, impossible if the images are too large) then with a bit of effort the images finally snap into alignment and the 3D effect is pretty good.
No ... the images are in the same order as the camera position ... when I cross my eyes, I get a perfect 3D effect.
Diverging requires relaxing the muscles instead of contracting, so I doubt many can do it. I can only get half way.
Kim, that may be, but I've been looking at stereo photos for decades and whether eyes are crossed or diverged you'll get an effect. When looking at most stereo photos with crossed eyes the stereo effect is pronounced, sometimes too much so, with objects at different distances appearing to be located in sharply defined planes giving the photo an unnatural look. When you look with your eyes diverged the effect is muted, somewhat stereo but not quite, but more interesting than a simple 2D photo. Looking at your shots (I did it again just now) with crossed eyes the effect is only slightly 3D and as usual the crossed eyes tricks the brain into perceiving the image as being a bit smaller. When looking with diverged eyes, the image appears slightly larger and the 3D effect is perfect, much more pronounced. Even the reflections on the table have a depth to them and it looks like you're looking into the tabletop as if it was a mirror. The other way (with crossed eyes) is don't see the same depth to the reflections. It's more like looking at a print on paper.
I saved and cropped the photo, creating a left and a right image so that I could swap their positions, and when I did this I was able to cross my eyes and get the proper 3D effect, and now the diverged look wasn't as good.
You're correct, that viewing stereo images with your eyes diverged is more difficult, but a simple trick is to reduce the size of the photos. When they're small enough (with no gaps between them) it's almost as easy viewing 3D images this way. Even if you're still unable to do it, try swapping the positions as I did. I think that you'll find that when you look at the reversed pair with crossed eyes the 3D effect will be much more pronounced.
Ok ... I updated it. You were very much right about the difference when the two are reversed ... the key is that it locks the whole thing into one stable image, whereas there are parallax issues if the left and right are placed in that position ...
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