Stereo Photography

A week or two ago I came across something I had been searching for a long time. Stereo photography glasses. They were in the 50% off sales bin at the universities book store. I suppose they were on sale as stereo photography doesn’t seem that popular anymore. I find it quite interesting though.

What is stereo photography?

Stereo photography is a way of taking 3D photos. It is really quite simple. Most of us have two eyes. Both eyes see from a slightly different view. If you were to close your right eye and look through the left eye. The left edge of a close by object, it will cover a certain portion of far away object. Then if you close the left eye and look through the right eye, the left edge of the near object will cover more of the far object.

The closer the near object is and the further the far object is the more/less of the far object is reveiled by switching eyes. Your brain, as long as it is functioning properly, will use this information to help interpret distance and even the speed of a moving object.

Now, another thing you may notice (but it is hard to see for some people) is that if you are looking at a far object and keep it in focus there will be to “copies” of the near object both slightly faint. However the minute you try and focus on the near object or one of the copies the far object will turn in to two faint objects.

Okay, the real point is simpler than all what I just said. One eye sees one thing and the other eye sees another thing and the brain turns it into one three dimensional object.

Creating a stereo photograph

To create a stereo photograph simply point your camera at one main object for your picture. Next move your camera slightly to the left or right. Only a couple inches differences is needed, remember you are mimicing what your eyes do and your eyes are only a couple inches apart.

Viewing stereo photograph

Smaller images are easier to view. First you will need to put the right image on the right side and the left image on the left side. To make it easier to view leave a tiny space between the images. Next put on your stereo glasses and view the image. I have a hard time using glasses so I can’t give much tips on that.

I prefer to make my eyes go cross-eyed to view it. In the image below I made a little round black dot on the left and right photos. When your eyes go cross-eyed you will see four dots begin to appear. Two from the lift photo dot and two from the right photo dot. As you get more and more cross-eyed the two dots in the middle get closer and closer together. Once the two middle dots are over top of each other you will now have 3 dots in total, you are now ready to view the picture. If you go too crossed-eyed or not crossed-eyed enough you will see four dots again.

To view the three-dimensional photo you will need to look at one of the objects in the photo and go crossed until you can see three images. The center image will be the three-dimensional view. Once you are looking at it keep staring at the object for a little while until your eyes have it in focus. I found that different distances for the image sometimes make it easier to get it into focus.

After you have one object in focus you can slowly begin to focus in on other objects. I find sometimes if I move my eyes too fast to other objects I become uncross-eyed and have to start over. As you look around you will notice it is really 3-D!!!

Some people find this process really hard or even impossible. Also if you have eye troubles or get head aches easy you should probably not try this. Using stereo glasses to view the image might be an option for you. Or you can try the red and blue glasses which use a similar process but does not require you to go cross-eyed.