The arabian horse in 3-D. SBS plus one to spare effort for others

Arab stallion in San Diego county

The magnificent arabian breed stallion. San Diego SBS

Arab  X pair   Kodachrome

Tourlou wrote:

I'm in Dubai for a job and it'll be Dubai horse fair this coming week-end. The Sheik's best stallions will be there. Too bad I don't have a pair of cameras here!!!

Nice 3D effect. How do you do to trick the brain? you slightly skew them to give apparent points of wiew? Or, were they shot as pairs from the onset?

Regards.

Ron

Hi Ron.  Using a two lens camera.  In this case I used film.  The recent digital effects usually come from two cameras side by side at eye spacing.  Or by one of the few newer models like the discontinued Fuji model.   I used one from the fifties that was once very popular.  And I mount and view them in a lighted viewer.  A fascinating subject to look into. Dubai sounds interesting.

David White company Stereo Realist model made in the 1950s for 35mm film.  Still functional.

A 12 inch  Jasper Engineering ( no longer made)slide bar w/ other assorted junk for moving camera measured distance.   Not bad for super closeup work.  Like  W/  60 mm macro lens

Tourlou wrote:

Sorry Gerry,

I thought I was answering you inside anothe post I did this week about the Canadian rockies. It's somewhere else in here, in the 3D pictures Forum. But reading backwards, in your post, I can remember why I asked you this question!

Regards.

Two on a single frame using the small 2003 Olympus C 5050...with sliding of camera on a bar device. SBS alas and alack :0(

Rene

Not a problem. I figured it out. Yes, I have experimented with same aerostereoscopy. If you do a search with term " photogrammetry " you will see that it has a solid history in aerial survey work. Vertical as well as angular. This is an old shot with a camera, the Olympus C 5050 that had a two shot in one mode. Interesting idea, could be done with modern cameras as well if they chose. But of course, a slide bar was what I used for the camera two some shot.

I used to use a slide bar for digital stereo, until I discovered StereoPhotoMaker freeware. I found the slide bar (which also requires a strong mount or tripod) was just to awkward to use. The results from the slide bar were quite acceptable (with careful technique)

Since I used StereoPhotoMaker (and it's autoalign feature), it's primarily been hand-held single cam cha-cha's.

I also still have a reconditioned Realist f2.8, but have not put any film through it for 10 years...

Realist shots here (sorry, all "crosseye").

https://www.flickr.com/photos/turbguy/albums/72157622321846829

The story about this Flickr Album...

All of these shots were taken with either an f3.5 or f2.8 Stereo Realist Camera made by David White Co.

In the 1970's, my neighbor's eyesight began to fail, so she sold me her f3.5 Stereo Realist so it could continue to see use. She used it VERY heavily for at least 20 years. I used it just as much for over 20 MORE years, until I upgraded to an f2.8 Stereo Realist. It still worked well when I sold it! The Realist is a very sturdy, simple camera. In a pinch, it also can be used as a weapon!

I couldn't afford slide film in those early years, so I fed it re-spooled B&W film, processed it myself, and made Holmes views in my "darkroom", seen here...

http://www.flickr.com/photos/turbguy/4634280265

To produce a single antique Holmes (3.5" x 7") card took about an hour (not including drying time). How things have changed!

I had produced HUNDREDS of negatives that I've never seen printed or made positive. A modern film scanner is changing that rapidly....

Slides and Negatives presented here were scanned with a CanoScan 8400F and 9000F scanner, cropped and re-aligned with StereoPhotoMaker, then tweaked (levels, curves and color balanced) and sharpened with Photoshop. Recently, I have discovered that even very dense negatives can be successfully scanned by fusing three scans at different exposures with Photomatix software.

The scanner can recognize dust and scratches on E6 films and "removes" them. Sometimes this produces small spot "retinal rivalries" as the software "fills-in" or clones the obscured image with extrapolated data from surrounding areas. Spots/scratches on black and white negatives cannot be detected and these remain in the displayed image.

The Stereo Realist can have some "Quirks". Some users have called these quirks "features"! It was common to experience a small light leak on the right film chip using modern high speed (100 ISO) films due to an inadequate film door  light seal. These remain in some of these scans. Another is a slight difference in exposure between pairs. While the shutter is fully sychronized, the irises are not so precise. The scanner will pick up these slight exposure differences and some of this shows as "retinal rivalries" in the highlights (typically in clouds). The solution was to always set the lens aperture from one direction to compensate for very slight "slack" in the iris adjustment mechanism. An example of both "features" is here:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/turbguy/3949565494/in/set-72157622321846829

The f3.5 Realist lenses will vignette heavily when used at f16 or f22. Here's an example:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/turbguy/4468636702/in/set-72157622321846829

It's best to go no smaller than f11 to avoid vignetting. Some of this vignetting can be seen in the scans of early slides and negatives. The f2.8 lenses do NOT vignette at small apertures, and will produce superior photographic results overall.

For a great resource about the Realist, go to DrT's page here:

http://www.3drealist.com

All the images here are arranged for "crosseye" viewing.

I have several Realists myself. Bought the first one in 1956, Yep, I am a chirpy 84. I kind of gave up on shooting film when Kodachrome stopped processing. But I have a sizeable collection of mounted slides. I use a MAC desktop. And I guess if I had stayed with PCs I would fool around with the ubiquitous SPM. Yes, yes, I know I can dual boot with Windows. Feh! Tried it and hated it...( I did try). Costa has suggested a program which though not as versatile maybe as Stereo Photo Maker will allow me to digitize and align my pairs for both parallel and cross.......(An aside. For a while last year, one of Hillary Hess;s friends from the NSA processed my scans so I could post them on her FB page " Vintage Stereo." At the moment, i would need a motivation to buy a laptop just for this one program SPM, but I have toyed with the idea......so much to learn even about my cameras and their menus...mission creep at 84. No, don't tell me it keeps me young and such pious stuff...Though if someone volunteers to take my scans by e m ail and return them after SPMing I can of course finish the tweaking as I did on Hillary's web page...)

Now, If the next chapter of Avatar comes out in 3-D and LG makes a 3-D set I will this time grab one. I am not moved to buy a projector which is the current only way for sensible group viewing...Now as to glass free viewing, I predict this is not in the cards this decade. Just do not see it.....

Manfrotto makes a low cost slide bar which is small. The old model from Novoflex was nice and a used Novoflex packs light. But then, a serious stereographer has to be motivated. Tripod anyone? Flash anyone? See what I mean.... The photo shows theFrankencopy rig aka jury rigged set up I use now to  scan the mounted slides frame by frame. If one has the goodies lying around, it is slow for sure, but yields a very sharp pair of chrome copies.  Read large JPEG files!Forces one to super winnow down the ones worth keeping as digital. A rigged slide holder backlit with an LED light color adjustable and rheostated plus two slide bars, one for small adjustment for focus and one for sliding across the two images. And my wonderful Olympus macro lens. And the GX 8 camera with the nice LCD. One can make color corrections right on screen by adjusting the color temp via the menu...eyeball the focus or use focus aids. Mainly I have to say IT WORKS. And probably faster than assembling an IKEA bedroom set

Copy set up, set up and take down... Panasonic camera w. Olympus 60 mm macro ...Novoflex slide rail for focus. and a bunch of flat boars for alignment by seaman's eye...

Hey Wayne, just between us now-----I confide that i think cross eyed free viewing is a kind of well shall I say it, I will, that tis a -weenie approach to free view pairs..What? What he say?

When the image remains where it should be yes, behind the plane of the screen or page and the window can be controlled so much better. Yes, it is unnatural to separate accomodation from convergence. It is a muscle training exercise. But. Big But. This was known from the Gilded Age. Thus the Stereoly viewer, the Verascope viewer, the Stereotach viewer, the Realist, Wollensak, the Revere, the Iloca, and on and on, even the Viewmaster viewer,,,. The preferred method is to use a Side by Side method. I know some just can't get it, sorry lads and gals..... But apparently some heroic types do, and some even do not find they can cross their eyes and get the same effect or enjoy the result. I am one. And likely to remain that way for the rest of my natural life. So be it. It is a big tent, thank Providence. No, I never ever in my life resorted to the cha cha method. I guess I am a compulsive when it comes to the glory of stereoscopy. And i have a self importance on the subject from so many years with the two lens world.

I agree cross freeviewing is not easy for a portion of the population, and probably impossible for a small portion. I liken it to learning to ride a bicycle. It's hard (ouch) at first, but once you get it, it gets easier and easier.

I can also parallel freeview, but large images cause eye-divergence, which ALL the population finds uncomfortable. I can comfortably freeview Holmes cards at less than arms length.

Viewing has always been the downfall of stereophotography. All the parallel viewers you mention are great solutions, but IMO, a Realist Red Button (for 35mm) or a Keystone Visual Survey Telebinocular (for Holmes cards) are amongst the best viewers commonly manufactured. YMMV.

As to image element "z-axis placement" on the screen, it makes no difference if parallel or cross.

I WOULD suggest you purchase a cheap used "Windoz Box", JUST for SPM. I freeview the images (cross) on screen and make all common stereo adjustments (aligning, cropping, window setting, slight horizon leveling) in real time. BUT, there is a learning curve. It has LOTS of features, and accepts/ouputs just about all stereo formats ever devised, and is updated frequently.