Thursday, February 19, 2009

These photographs were taken recently with a Pentax Optio 750z using the built in 3-d feature.  And I have to say, this is one of the most wonderful cameras I've ever used. It can make "free-viewing" stereo photographs, cross you eyes style. In the side by side images below, left and right eye views are reversed so that crossing your eyes will reverse them back.  With crossed eyes, you see the image double, overlapping in the center. The center, merged image when focused on will appear in 3-d. The images are taken one at a time and  converted into a single jpeg by the camera. It's called the "cha-cha" method, because of the little step you make to the side for the second picture. The advantage of this method is that you can control the distance between the two exposures as well as the angle. This allows you to increase the depth of the image by increasing the distance between the two exposures - you have the stereo effect of seeing as if your eyes where anything from a few feet to miles apart. The disadvantage of this method is that anything that moves between the exposures will not merge when viewed. In each of the photographs I took below, there is a kind of subtle stereoscopic reward at the moment the 3d is achieved.  

Cadman Plaza Park in Brooklyn. A classic stereo composition with a path leading the eye to the horizon. 
A very red door in Chelsea.
The soon to be extinct television antenna spotted in Brooklyn Heights.
 Orange boots waiting to cross  Atlantic Avenue.
 Parking lot in mid-town Manhattan - focus on the car in the foreground.
Brooklyn Bridge from Dumbo on a foggy winter morning.
 A very telephoto stereo image. The depth of field compression is rather surreal.
 

1 comment:

jennifer said...

That's incredible and beyond cool!! I should have taken a pic of myself with my computer whilst viewing them in 3-D, I'm sure I looked hilarious! Crossing my eyes with a wide grin!