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Cheap trick for 3D.

3D or stereo photography has been around since early 1900. The methods are several, stereo cameras with two lenses that take the picture like the eyes see them, a regular camera that you move horizontal and take one picture for the left eye and one for the right. There are also special lenses that use prisms and mirrors to make two pics, and of course holograms. 

 

      Most of these require expensive gear, and (or) are in one or other way limited. The way of looking at the result is also different, stereoscopes that show two separated pictures (one for each eye) and the ones with dots that you are supposed to change your eyes to see (gives me headache), or the holograms that requires a lot of expensive lasers and other gears.

      Then there is the most familiar one, with the two colored glasses, that often comes with magazines and such, it's called "anaglyph". The idea is that you have two different pics that are filtered with a red and a cyan filter, either when the picture(s) are shot, or in PS, then when they are matched together they will make a 3D picture, if observed through the colored glasses. The cons with this method is that you either need a stereo camera / special lens (expensive) or move your camera to take two shots. (limited to non moving objects, and a lot extra job in PS). An other downside is that these pictures are weird to look at without the  colored glasses.

      I happened to find an article on the internet about a lens that Tamron made 15 years ago, that had a built in filter that was half red and half cyan, it was supposed to give anaglyph 3D pictures direct on the film (sensor).

      I had an old lens , Spiratone 100mm 1:2.8, that I had bought at a flea market for $5, two pair of 3D glasses and an old broken lens with Nikon bayonet.

The first step was to make the filter, cut out a half circle from each side of one pair of glasses, made a circle frame out of thin cardboard to the size of the inner tube of the lens, and glued the flter halfs on the frame. Next step was to butcher the lens and get the filter as close to the aperture blades as possible, put the lens together again, like the second pic to the right shows. At last I figured out a way to attach the bayonet from the Nikon lens and magical I had a 3D lens.

Pros  with this way of taking 3D. IT'S CHEAP!! You can take moving objects. No extra work in PS, and you can see the picture without glasses.

       The reason that it is OK without glasses (no 3D of course) is that the focused object isn't affected by the filter, but everything that is out of focus is, so the background looks a little weird but the in focus object is OK.

Cons, you need to have the aperture full open and you need to be pretty close to the object to get a good 3D effect. Will just work in landscape mode. So it has it limitations, but is great fun.

 

And of course YOU need to have 3D glasses to see the effect on my test pictures here :-)

If  you like cheap camera hacks, I have 3 other tabblos here:

 

$3.75 Fish eye lens.

 

$0.00 lens

 

Infrared camera

COMMENTS
Candlepower said at 6:08 p.m. on Dec 5, 2007:
So intersting! Thank You!
Pkeener said at 6:15 p.m. on Dec 5, 2007:
anders, you are da coolest. i love this stuff. its so great to see you back on tabblo and up to your old tricks, i mean, cheap tricks! glad you didnt reference a song title to them, because i dont know their stuff!
Love2laugh said at 6:43 p.m. on Dec 5, 2007:
Don't think I could do it myself... but love seeing what you do... "fire ant Bro". Love them, as always.
Tishfish said at 6:44 p.m. on Dec 5, 2007:
This is great Anders. Now if I could get it to sink in, I'd be doing good. Great work!!!!
Floridamolle said at 6:55 p.m. on Dec 5, 2007:
Thank you everyone for your comments. I was a little hesitant to upload tis Tabblo, because most people don't have the 3D glasses laying around, if they didn't come with some magazine or so, and to see the depth you need them, must say that it's pretty amazing, especially the two bee ones. But it might be someone that have some glasses, would be fun to get a comment if anyone has. Thank you again
Patgf58 said at 7:06 p.m. on Dec 5, 2007:
3-D glasses or not youve got the capture Anders. I'll be rummaging around my kids' stuff tonight... I know there are some glasses in there somewhere
Decoy said at 7:19 p.m. on Dec 5, 2007:
Oj detta va avancerat! =) Jag har inga 3D-glasögon att kolla igenom, men det är fascinerande va du kan göra!! Du har verkligen förstått tekniken, och det är coolt att se dig kunna använda dig av dina tekniska kunskaper. Jag säger bara "hatten av för dig"! Jag önskar jag kunde en bråkdel av tekniken du kan! =) Jag har dock fantasi, så jag kan föreställa mig djupet i bilderna!
Debdog said at 11:42 p.m. on Dec 5, 2007:
you can see it even with out 3 d glasses...where on EARTH do you even find those!!! :)
Anjad said at 3:39 a.m. on Dec 6, 2007:
Cool tabblo! Thanks for the info.
DocEna said at 8:15 a.m. on Dec 6, 2007:
Very educational and inspirational...
Memotions said at 8:42 a.m. on Dec 6, 2007:
You are just a fount of information! Wish I had kept my 3-D glasses from way back when. guess I'll have to find some at a flea market and have another look at this. Most interesting Anders.
Ania said at 3:29 p.m. on Dec 6, 2007:
Häftigt! När jag var liten hade jag en apparat där man kunde se speciella bilder i stereo. Kul att man kan göra sådana bilder själv nu! Har inte 3D glasögon, det hade varit kul att få uppleve dina bilder.!!
Loes said at 4:33 p.m. on Dec 6, 2007:
Too bad I don't have 3D glasses!
OscarDaniel said at 8:48 p.m. on Dec 6, 2007:
We allways learn good things looking your tabblos Anders thanks ..very nice idea!!
Umauma said at 10:29 a.m. on Dec 7, 2007:
Great adventurous photography Anders, even without 3D glasses, this is so interesting.
AdSR said at 5:47 p.m. on Dec 7, 2007:
Anders the DIY photo engineer strikes again! I just love your technical tabblos.
Rheap said at 8:33 p.m. on Dec 8, 2007:
This is just brilliant, very cool..
EMA said at 6:26 p.m. on Dec 10, 2007:
This is cool Anders. With my 3D glasses I could see your test pictures! Very nice!
Thank you!
Gerardfotografeert said at 5:28 p.m. on Dec 11, 2007:
Awesome job Anders, thank you for the info but it is to complicated for me and not me stuff.
Marcif said at 12:44 a.m. on Dec 14, 2007:
Weird, but really cool! I will have to see if my husband still has some 3D glasses. I know we had some around heere somewhere.
Nakedeast said at 3:45 p.m. on Jan 2, 2008:
very cool!
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