Eleanor T. Culling
A few words about venturing into 3D 'stereo' photography.
My first attempt at taking two images for stereo photography - look closely
and you can see the difference.
Do you remember the old stereo viewers and 7" x 3
1/2"
cards? Wandering thru an antique shop not
too long ago I thought I might like to try it with a modern digital camera
and an up-to-date viewer.
I forgot about the project for several months put had mentioned the
idea to another member of the
Wenatchee, WA camera club. Two weeks ago he sent me to an interesting
page at
Pokescope and
my enthusiam for the project increased. I researched a number of other
sites (see Resource Links below) and out I went with my camera to our
local art gallery to experimant. For the set of photos above I hadn't
purchased the software for aligning and cropping the two photos but I
was lucky enough to get it just right by guessing. Later the software
arrived and
I practiced various other shooting techniques. Cropping horizontal photos
wasn't working too well because I couldn't easily decide what part of
the middle of the shot that I would want to use for the vertical format
of the stereo shots. Then the software arrived!
PokeScope® Stereoscopic
Software
I found an old Spiratone slidebar and a light weight ball head so that
I can now shoot verticals easily - needing only to crop some off the
top or bottom (or both) to get the correct ratio of width to height.
My new viewer came from 3D
Stereo. Finally I realized that my work in front of the
computer would be much easier with a PokeScope® Pocket
Stereoscope With
it I can now view stereo photos from other sites. The 'cross-eyed'
viewing method just doesn't work for me.
I'd like to share with you some thoughts about printing these stereo images. For my Christmas last year I purchased an Epson PictureMate 4" x 6" printer. Neither of my other printers will accept paper this size. After using the software to align and crop my two images correctly (using the 4:3 ratio) I saved them as one image - the pair. The photo above is 12041205pair.jpg. I opened Paint Shop Pro v.9, to make the chages that were needed to the historam, color balance, saturation etc. and I resized the image to Resolution 240 and a width of 5.8. The height will be less than 4 inches. (Since the PictureMate doesn't print the whole 4" x 6" image. 5.8 seems to work well.) I printed the image from within Paint Shop Pro, attached it to a 7" x 4" card and I view the results with my new viewer.
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| Click each for a larger size. More Examples on page 2 |
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| Pokescope Competion Entries | |
More Resource links on page
2.
A few tips for beginners:
- Use a tripod! Use a tripod! and try to level your camera.
- Use manual exposure settings so that both photos will be the same. I have found that when the light is consistent you won't have to use a manual setting.
- Shoot vertical whenever possible - it makes cropping so much easier.
- When looking at the shot (if your camera is on a slide bar) compose by initally positioning your camera between the right and left shots. If the total distance between shots is 2 1/2 " then compose at 1 1/4". Move the slider to your right (standing behind the camera) and take the first shit. SliDe the camera to the left as far as you choose (probably about 2 1/2 inches) for your second shot.
- See this article from the Pokescope site.
- However, if you are using Pokescope software you will open the right hand shot in the left section and visa versa. See screenshot.
- If you use the Pokescope software align very, very carefully, especially if your image is busy and complex, as are the ones above. If you haven't 'lined up' the shots very well in the first place you may get some strange results.
- Since I began this new venture I find myself looking at photo possibilities in a whole new way. I also think about all the shots I would like to do again..... such as some of the red rocks along the east coast of Tasmania.
Camera Setup
Click for a larger image.
All photos are Copyright Protected by
Eleanor T. Culling, 2002 - 2005
Page updated 9/7/2005
Let's Travel!
