3d or stereo photography?

I would like to take and present high quality photos in 3d or stereo view. What is the state of the art as far as methods and equipment goes?

The old View-Master might be a reference, which would present 3D experience with amazing quality, but with digital images I presume there are other approaches.

For taking the pictures, are there any adapters available for interchangable lens cameras (e.g. the Fujifilm X-system) providing for two pictures, shifted sideways and taken in succession?

And what would be the best way for high quality viewing? 3D glasses on my computer screen? Or some of those VR goggles?

KrAnd wrote:

I would like to take and present high quality photos in 3d or stereo view. What is the state of the art as far as methods and equipment goes?

The old View-Master might be a reference, which would present 3D experience with amazing quality, but with digital images I presume there are other approaches.

For taking the pictures, are there any adapters available for interchangable lens cameras (e.g. the Fujifilm X-system) providing for two pictures, shifted sideways and taken in succession?

And what would be the best way for high quality viewing? 3D glasses on my computer screen? Or some of those VR goggles?

For shooting static subjects you can do as you suggested. I don't know of any specialist stereo heads, but you could use a macro focus slider with the camera mounted 'sideways'. I remember doing this back in film days so I could just mount the transparencies into ready-made stereo mounts. I was lucky because the nearest photo shop to my studio was a stereo specialist.

Back then you could still also buy dedicated stereo cameras, shooting with two lenses. There was also an adapter that used a set of 45 deg mirrors to put a stereo pair on a single image but I never found that convincing. Try googling 'stereo photo adapter' for some other ideas.

I can't answer for how you can present your results. Are you planning on individual head sets or some sort of screen or projection system?

You will get more/better answers on the "3D and Stereo Photography" forum on this site.

CAPTURE of stereo images is very simple nowadays, using either a dedicated digital stereo camera (Fuji W1 or W3), a cobbled together pair of cams with a ganged release, or running CHDK freeware (digital Canons), or simply shifting sideways between two consecutive shots using a single digital cam (called the 'cha-cha' method) and then using StereoPhotoMaker freeware to process the shots taken by any of the above (typically for perfecting alignment and stereo window adjustment).

VIEWING has been the real issue with stereo photography. The best experience is with dual high resolution screens viewed with apparatus that separates the two views so ONLY the right eye sees the right image, and the left eye sees the left image. Google Cardboard is an inexpensive example with very low resolution. All other methods (and there are plenty) have issues with crosstalk (aka, "ghosting") between the two images.

However, there is another method that requires no viewing apparatus at all! That is called "freeviewing", where with a little training you can use your own eyes to do the trick. One method is discussed here:

www.neil.creek.name/blog/2008/02/28/how-to-see-3d-photos/

This is the crosseye method, which permits freeviewing of much larger image pairs than the "parallel" method, which requires you to diverge your eyes (which is VERY uncomfortable) for images that centered wider than your interoccular distance (typically 63-65mm in an adult).

Thanks - I was not aware of that forum when I did the original post, but thanks.

Still, I appreciate your comments and overview, as well as others I have received. Apparently we still have some way to go here...

Yes we have a way to go for viewing.

Until a multi-gigapixel light field display becomes available, stereo viewing (without a device or "freeview training") will be a sticking point...

BUT DON'T LET THAT STOP YOU FROM MAKING AND VIEWING STEREO IMAGES! Good Viewing devices are easily available and cheap.

Stereophotos through Holmes viewers were the "Television" of the 1800's-1900's.  And they STILL work great today...

Not may people realize that stereo imaging PREDATES photography by at least a decade.

KrAnd wrote:

I would like to take and present high quality photos in 3d or stereo view. What is the state of the art as far as methods and equipment goes?

The old View-Master might be a reference, which would present 3D experience with amazing quality, but with digital images I presume there are other approaches.

For taking the pictures, are there any adapters available for interchangable lens cameras (e.g. the Fujifilm X-system) providing for two pictures, shifted sideways and taken in succession?

And what would be the best way for high quality viewing? 3D glasses on my computer screen? Or some of those VR goggles?

The simplest way by far is to capture & view anaglyphs.

Capture can be done using an ordinary camera in a single shot (or even video) using the sneaky little trick I discussed in this Instructable . The results can be viewed in stereo using appropriately-colored glasses with any display -- including the live view on the back of your camera! The glasses are around $1 or less each, and you sacrifice one pair to make the filter for your lens.

Here's a simple example image shot as a green/magenta analglyph:

I believe that shot was taken with my Sony NEX-7 using an old SMC Takumar 50mm f/1.4 lens, and is pretty much as the JPEG came out of the camera (with minor tonal adjustment).

Turbguy1 wrote:

Until a multi-gigapixel light field display becomes available, stereo viewing (without a device or "freeview training") will be a sticking point...

Behold Parallel Reality from Misapplied Sciences (my brother is CTO).

Here's a story about the technology from GeekWire, including demos . The catch is that the displays don't just give one person stereo -- you can have tens of thousands of people looking at the same display and each seeing different (even stereo) stuff -- all without glasses, etc.

The tech will be fairly cheap, but is initially targeting larger displays with modest resolution -- think stadium displays -- not small high resolution displays.

ProfHankD wrote:

Turbguy1 wrote:

Until a multi-gigapixel light field display becomes available, stereo viewing (without a device or "freeview training") will be a sticking point...

Behold Parallel Reality from Misapplied Sciences (my brother is CTO).

Here's a story about the technology from GeekWire, including demos . The catch is that the displays don't just give one person stereo -- you can have tens of thousands of people looking at the same display and each seeing different (even stereo) stuff -- all without glasses, etc.

The tech will be fairly cheap, but is initially targeting larger displays with modest resolution -- think stadium displays -- not small high resolution displays.

I think to get the correct image in each eye, you would have to be at the correct distance from the display. But something like this is the right general approach, and could potentially offer parallax, giving true 3D rather than just two-image stereo.

D Cox wrote:

ProfHankD wrote:

Turbguy1 wrote:

Until a multi-gigapixel light field display becomes available, stereo viewing (without a device or "freeview training") will be a sticking point...

Behold Parallel Reality from Misapplied Sciences (my brother is CTO).

Here's a story about the technology from GeekWire, including demos . The catch is that the displays don't just give one person stereo -- you can have tens of thousands of people looking at the same display and each seeing different (even stereo) stuff -- all without glasses, etc.

The tech will be fairly cheap, but is initially targeting larger displays with modest resolution -- think stadium displays -- not small high resolution displays.

I think to get the correct image in each eye, you would have to be at the correct distance from the display. But something like this is the right general approach, and could potentially offer parallax, giving true 3D rather than just two-image stereo.

It's basically lightfield display technology with between tens of thousands and millions of distinguished view angles per pixel. Basically, you can deliver whatever view you wish to each individual eye with an audience of thousands. It's just a matter of tracking people to determine which views should be presented where.

It is promising.  I suspect the data rate to such a display will be HUGE!  Well above that required for a two-view 3D display, and requiring computing power well above a gaming desktop...