stereo photography

I need some advice for photographing small plants in stereo. Would

you reccomend a stereo camera? If so, what could I use for closeup

work? (I'd like to avoid using a wide angle lens if possible). I've

been using a 35mm slr, shifting the camera position for each frame.

I'd like to use my view camera, which means a tripod, but I'd also

like to emulate what I've seen of weed scientist's approach if

possible, which means hand holding the camera. Any advice? I'm most

concerned about the angle of the camera; should the camera angle stay

the same for both frames or can I point the camera at my subject,

changing the angle slightly (similar to the way my eyes point at a

subject instead of having two parallel lines of sight). The few

stereo cameras I've seen have lenses which are parallel - fine for

vistas, but isn't parallax an issue when at close range? Most of the

info I've found promotes parallel lines of sight. Thanks for your

help.

There are stereo attachments that fit onto the camera body or the lemses of certain cameras. I think Pentax or Canon makes or made one, along with a viewer. They put the two images on a single 35mm frame. The distance between the two shots or lenses is the average interpupilary distance, or somewhere between 2 and 3 inches. You should read up on this more. If you shoot in large format, how will you view your images in stereo?

Thanks -your advice will be very helpful. I'm still unclear on which is more effective: parallel lenses, ov intersecting lines of sight. I've searched on-line, but would appreciate some guidance. Do you know of resources (books, websites, etc.)?

You may look at "3D Lens in a Cap" on the www.loreo.com site.

I didn't try this, but would like to.

 

Note "PC Lens in a Cap" as well.

Great website, but still nothing specific to parallax considerations for photographing (ie. camera line of sight: parallel or negative angles). For what it's worth, I did find this, http://astronomy.swin.edu.au/~pbourke/stereographics/stereorender/ There's a good bibliography, and I'm sure I'll find my answers in the mentioned journal articles. Since my time is very dear right now, I'd appreciate any leads on a simple yes or no: is angling the cameras better than using them at parallel lines of sight (for lack of better terminology). Thank you for your help so far -anxious to put the info to good use.

If you use a single camera, you should move the camera along a parallel axis for the macro shots. Don't try to angle them in. For macro, you don't move the camera as far as with a normal scene. Normal scenes look realistic when the camera difference approximates the distance between your 2 eyes. With closeups, the distance can be much smaller and still give a realistic stereo view. There are formulas to calculate ideal distances but I've found it more fun to experiment for different effects.

 

At the other extreme is something called hyper stereo where distant objects can achieve greater 3D effect by increasing the distance between the lens. Here is a shot taken at 600MPH by taking 2 successive shots from my digital camera. I can only guess at the resulting distance between the two shots. This is set up in cross-eyed mode where you view the stereo effect by slowly crossing your eyes until a third image forms in the middle of the other two.<div></div>

Thanks for the info. Actually found the ideal distance for moving lenses (1.30 the distance from camera to closest object). Still nothing about parallax and photographing -just parallax for projecting. Amazing 3-d image. hopefully, I'll be able to produce the same results with my weeds, but at a much slower speed. Cheers.