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Well, mostly. I worked on my guitar today (in case I haven't said anything about it yet, I've been building a custom guitar in a friend-of-family's shop since about July '09), and decided that the shop would be a cool place to try and do some stereo. Lots of objects at various depths.
I don't know what I did right here, but it seems to have worked. The only place I have trouble seeing is the lower left corner area. I can see it if I re-focus on my unfinished guitar back or the bandsaw table, but I can't see the entire image in focus and in 3d all at once.
click to enlarge, or see it on Flickr
Aperture: f/4.5
Shutter Speed: 1/15
ISO: 80
Monopod
I'm pretty happy with this. One thing that I read was putting a thicker border usually helps quite a bit. Other than that, I just did my best to line up the pictures in Photoshop before setting them into different sides of the image. I'll have to see if I can find some kind of software that specifically helps make stereo photos.
This photo is essentially the same as the one in this post. The difference is, I stood back further and used telephoto to fill the frame similarly rather than getting up close like a macro. This negated the actual difference in angles between shots, which apparently makes the photo a little easier on the eyes. The other thing it did is seemingly make it work better.
click to enlarge, or see it on Flickr
Aperture: f/5.0
Shutter Speed: 1/6 (both)
ISO: 1600
Monopod
My minimum aperture at the focal length I used was f/5.0, so I had to really crank the ISO to get a shutter speed I could use. Since this is an exercise more than anything, I didn't worry about that too much. If I wanted to get a print-worthy shot like this, I would be more controlling with the lighting.
Anyway, this one worked a little better, or at least seemed easier on my eyes. Let me know what you think. I have a few more tricks up my sleeve that I'll be trying out sometime later.
As I'm pretty sure I mentioned, I got a monopod for my birthday. With this new addition to my arsenal, I felt pretty good about taking another shot at stereo. My approach is to use my monopod to take the first shot, with the viewfinder of the camera at my right eye, a specific point in the photo centered, and any sort of horizon carefully straightened. Then I move the monopod so that the viewfinder is at my left eye, center the same point, and make sure the horizon is lined up. In theory, I figured, this would closely emulate what my eyes were seeing, which is kind of the point of stereo.
click to enlarge, or see it on Flickr
Aperture: f/2.6
Shutter Speed: 1/5 (both)
ISO: 400
Monopod
If you're familiar with viewing techniques for stereophotography, you'll see that it kind of worked. Pretty much like every other photo of this type that I've tried. Kind of isn't good enough for me, so if anyone has suggestions, ideas, tips, etc. for getting this right, both in taking the photos, and in post, please let me know.
I discovered stereophotography a few years ago, before I was really into doing photography myself. It's exactly what you would think it is. Stereo = two. Two photographs.
The idea behind stereophotography is getting actual depth out of a photo. You have two eyes. The slight difference in viewing angle between your two eyes allows you to judge distance, or perceive depth. So if you take two images from a slightly different perspective, you should be able to view them with depth.
To view stereophotographs, cross your eyes. The two side-by-side images should become three images. The one in the middle is the one you want to carefully focus on. It's similar to viewing Magic Eye pages. If you do it right, the middle image will seemingly be in 3D. It makes you feel like you're AT the location, rather than looking at a photograph of the location. Here's one I tried to take of my living room last night.
click to enlarge, or see it on Flickr
This one was less of an actual photograph (really crappy composition, etc.) and more of an experiment to see if I could get the effect to work. It works. There's not a whole lot of depth in the shot to see, but the technique was successful. I'll definitely have more interesting stereo shots in the future. But here's one of my favorite stereophotographs of all time.
