So who here does two-shot method stereo photography?

[RLangham]

So I have a borrowed Manfrotto tripod--one of their pretty basic models, probably for high-end amateurs or maybe videographers, but it's the only stable tripod I have, besides a very small rigid steel one from a telescope. I was looking at it the other day, and since I had just developed an old roll of film from before I sold my stereo camera, I had a thought: two-shot stereo photography. I'd done it once before, sliding my phone camera along a windowsill, but I don't think I slid it far enough to give realistic depth.

So the tripod has a big cork-padded head on it with a long slot for the mounting bolt to slide in, designed so that if you're using the tripod in the most sensible orientation, the bolt slides side-to-side, presumably since 35mm cameras range from having their tripod bushing in the middle to having it all the way at one end.

I mounted my Zenit S (it was what was loaded) and went outside to try some test shots, using this method: I took a shot with the camera mounted so that the bolt was at the right end of the slot, then I wound on and shifted the camera left by about the distance between my eyes (say about two and a half inches, maybe a little less), making very sure to keep the camera parallel to the edge of the tripod head in both shots, and being careful not to jostle the tripod.

It took me some messing around in Irfran, and I had to downgrade the quality to upload it, but here's crops from one of my test pairs, arranged so that you can cross your eyes and see the stereo image. (And yes, I'm aware of the scratches and I'm diagnosing the problem. One thing was that I had a bunch of old film cans piled up in my dark bag.)

Has anyone else here had much xsuccess doing this?

Now, what I really want is a mirror-box type stereo attachment, but most of them are so rare and expensive, and anyways I'd really want one that has threading for a 52mm filter ring (so I could use it with my Canon and Nikon 50mm's and zoom lenses or adapt it down to 48mm for my Minolta and Pentax 50mm's, but until then this method has some cool characteristics. By the way, has anyone here done much with dedicated stereo cameras? Most of them are such unreliable junk, but I messed with a Stereo Realist that seemed nice once.

 

[Donald Qualls]

I've done it once, with my old Spotmatic SP, when shooting images for an article to go to the National Association of Rocketry for their monthly member magazine (back in about 1999). This is actually a little hyperstereo; I had to move the entire tripod.

BTW, you've got the two frames reversed for cross-eye viewing on yours; the depth is inverted.

 

[Donald Qualls]

BTW, most of those 35 mm stereo cameras were actually pretty reliable when they were new -- but the longest-lasting ones, the Sawyers Viewmaster camera and the Sterero Realist, went out of production in the early 1970s, meaning that, at best, they're fifty-ish years old (and might be more like 80). Sure, I've got a bunch of cameras older than that -- but they don't have dual shutters, oddball film advances, and such -- and a number of them were more expensive with a single lens and shutter than a Stereo Realist or Viewmaster camera.

 

[RLangham]

I've done it once, with my old Spotmatic SP, when shooting images for an article to go to the National Association of Rocketry for their monthly member magazine (back in about 1999). This is actually a little hyperstereo; I had to move the entire tripod.

View attachment 245463

BTW, you've got the two frames reversed for cross-eye viewing on yours; the depth is inverted.

Maybe I view wall-eyed? I can view stereo cards without a viewer... at any rate the depth is not inverted for me, and it is on yours, so I'm going to assume that I'm going wall-eyed. I'll upload a version with the pair swapped when I get home from work tomorrow morning.

 

[RLangham]

BTW, most of those 35 mm stereo cameras were actually pretty reliable when they were new -- but the longest-lasting ones, the Sawyers Viewmaster camera and the Sterero Realist, went out of production in the early 1970s, meaning that, at best, they're fifty-ish years old (and might be more like 80). Sure, I've got a bunch of cameras older than that -- but they don't have dual shutters, oddball film advances, and such -- and a number of them were more expensive with a single lens and shutter than a Stereo Realist or Viewmaster camera.

To be fair, I am thinking of some of the low end stuff like Delta Stereo. I had one and it had a lot of issues with flare and at any rate the shutter's top speed restricted me to 200 ASA at most in daylight.

 

[Donald Qualls]

Yep, if you can view stereo cards without a viewer, you're doing them "wide-eyed" -- I can do that up to just about the spacing of my eyes (67 mm, give or take), but beyond that, no go. I probably could see yours on the screen if I had a smaller monitor.

To view cross-eye pairs (like mine), try holding up a finger between your eyes and the screen, and move it closer or further away until the images behind the finger fuse; then transfer focus from the finger to the image pair (which, with a little practice, will stay fused for you as it comes into focus). I learned to cross my eyes at will as a child, so I don't have to both with this, but not everyone was as odd a kid as I was.

 

[RLangham]

Yep, if you can view stereo cards without a viewer, you're doing them "wide-eyed" -- I can do that up to just about the spacing of my eyes (67 mm, give or take), but beyond that, no go. I probably could see yours on the screen if I had a smaller monitor.

To view cross-eye pairs (like mine), try holding up a finger between your eyes and the screen, and move it closer or further away until the images behind the finger fuse; then transfer focus from the finger to the image pair (which, with a little practice, will stay fused for you as it comes into focus). I learned to cross my eyes at will as a child, so I don't have to both with this, but not everyone was as odd a kid as I was.

Ow, I'm trying what you describe and it's not coming easy. In fact there's some strain involved.

 

[outwest]

Use a macro focusing rail turned sideways.

 

[Donald Qualls]

Hmmm. Okay, if it doesn't work for you, don't hurt yourself.

I've heard of a method of viewing wide-eye for people, like me, who have trouble doing it -- they put a card between their eyes, so each eye can only see one image. It's said to make it easier to fuse the images -- but I'm sure it won't work for cross-eye pairs; the card prevents exactly that.

 

[MattKing]

As I read this thread, all I can think of is:

 

[Donald Qualls]

From what I've read, people with strabismus don't generally experience double vision -- their brain either compensates and fuses the images despite the eyes pointing in different directions, or (as with amblyopia) shuts down one eye so as to see clearly with the other.

 

[RLangham]

Hmmm. Okay, if it doesn't work for you, don't hurt yourself.

I've heard of a method of viewing wide-eye for people, like me, who have trouble doing it -- they put a card between their eyes, so each eye can only see one image. It's said to make it easier to fuse the images -- but I'm sure it won't work for cross-eye pairs; the card prevents exactly that.

Actually I made it work for a second after posting that. I could get better at doing that.

 

[RLangham]

Use a macro focusing rail turned sideways.

Hmm... I don't have one but I can see where that would be preferable to my method.

The tripod head, by the way, says "3126" on it.

 

[RLangham]

And here, as promised, is the really cross-eyed version.

 

[Donald Qualls]

Aha! NOW I can see it.

There's a YouTube video around (search the Tube for Nishika, it was centered around those 4-lens cameras for lenticular prints) that includes a tutorial for assembling "wiggle" 3-D GIFs in GIMP -- that's really the easy way to display stereo images, because it bypasses the whole "cross-eye, wide-eye, or anaglyph" question and even works for folks without effective binocular vision. They show it using four frames, but it works almost as well with just two (and is less work to assemble)

 

[gdavis]

I've tried the cha-cha method (handholding and just shifting side to side between shots). It actually did seem to work. I've looked at the mirror things but like you said they're not very common and from what I've read not that great.
I recently got a Sputnik camera which shoots 120 film (6x6). They're old and not the most well made, but they have good lenses and with some simple fixing up can produce some very nice images. I've haven't shot any slides yet but read they're amazing in a good viewer. Of course the viewer is another problem, I'm looking into building one. I put a roll of portra 160 through it and contact printed the images which came out pretty nice for a first attempt quick test. Much easier than taking two separate shots and making sure the subject is stationary and the camera is positioned correctly for both shots.

 

[Donald Qualls]

For hyperstereo you could just mount a pair of basic cameras side by side and use a dual cable release to fire them. I saw a YouTube video where a fellow taped a pair of disposable cameras together, base to base, and got some nice shots (at least as well as I could tell in the wiggle images in the video). For 6x6, you could use something like an Isolette or Ikomat. Of if you're good with a hacksaw and glue, you could join a pair of identical 6x6 that don't have anything fancy about them, but do have adjustable aperture, shutter, and focus.

 

[RLangham]

I've tried the cha-cha method (handholding and just shifting side to side between shots). It actually did seem to work. I've looked at the mirror things but like you said they're not very common and from what I've read not that great.
I recently got a Sputnik camera which shoots 120 film (6x6). They're old and not the most well made, but they have good lenses and with some simple fixing up can produce some very nice images. I've haven't shot any slides yet but read they're amazing in a good viewer. Of course the viewer is another problem, I'm looking into building one. I put a roll of portra 160 through it and contact printed the images which came out pretty nice for a first attempt quick test. Much easier than taking two separate shots and making sure the subject is stationary and the camera is positioned correctly for both shots.

Yes, the Sputnik is one of the ones I was thinking of when I said most dedicate stereo cameras were a little sub-par... But then again, I've neither dealt with Sputnik or the Lubitel it derives from...

I had pictured them having really bad lenses, which is weird because I've only had one Russian lens that wasn't very satisfactory. They're all Industars on your Sputnik, right? Which is to say, a Soviet adaptation of the Tessar design... you could probably get some fantastic bokeh from a camera like that, with the shallow depth and out-of-focus performance of those lenses. I wonder what Bokeh does in stereo... I like Industars, at any rate, though I've only had the 35mm lenses and a dedicated enlarging lens that I used as a barrel lens on my Speed Graphic. They're good lenses based on a good design heritage, one from back when speed was generally unattainable so they focused on image quality. Industar-55 pancake lens for z39 or m42 is well worth it--you've seen the samples from it in this thread.

Do you find light leaks on your Sputnik? Looking at it it's one thing I would worry about. And do you find it flares badly?

 

[RLangham]

Aha! NOW I can see it.

There's a YouTube video around (search the Tube for Nishika, it was centered around those 4-lens cameras for lenticular prints) that includes a tutorial for assembling "wiggle" 3-D GIFs in GIMP -- that's really the easy way to display stereo images, because it bypasses the whole "cross-eye, wide-eye, or anaglyph" question and even works for folks without effective binocular vision. They show it using four frames, but it works almost as well with just two (and is less work to assemble)

I'm glad you can see it! Right now I'm racking my brain trying to figure out if the difference in color response (mostly fixed here, but still visible, and very noticeable on the raw scans) was due to changing light conditions in the five or six seconds between the shots, or random fluctuations in the chemistry, or whatever else...

 

[RalphLambrecht]

So I have a borrowed Manfrotto tripod--one of their pretty basic models, probably for high-end amateurs or maybe videographers, but it's the only stable tripod I have, besides a very small rigid steel one from a telescope. I was looking at it the other day, and since I had just developed an old roll of film from before I sold my stereo camera, I had a thought: two-shot stereo photography. I'd done it once before, sliding my phone camera along a windowsill, but I don't think I slid it far enough to give realistic depth.

So the tripod has a big cork-padded head on it with a long slot for the mounting bolt to slide in, designed so that if you're using the tripod in the most sensible orientation, the bolt slides side-to-side, presumably since 35mm cameras range from having their tripod bushing in the middle to having it all the way at one end.

I mounted my Zenit S (it was what was loaded) and went outside to try some test shots, using this method: I took a shot with the camera mounted so that the bolt was at the right end of the slot, then I wound on and shifted the camera left by about the distance between my eyes (say about two and a half inches, maybe a little less), making very sure to keep the camera parallel to the edge of the tripod head in both shots, and being careful not to jostle the tripod.

It took me some messing around in Irfran, and I had to downgrade the quality to upload it, but here's crops from one of my test pairs, arranged so that you can cross your eyes and see the stereo image. (And yes, I'm aware of the scratches and I'm diagnosing the problem. One thing was that I had a bunch of old film cans piled up in my dark bag.)

Has anyone else here had much xsuccess doing this?

Now, what I really want is a mirror-box type stereo attachment, but most of them are so rare and expensive, and anyway I'd really want one that has threading for a 52mm filter ring (so I could use it with my Canon and Nikon 50mm's and zoom lenses or adapt it down to 48mm for my Minolta and Pentax 50mm's, but until then this method has some cool characteristics. By the way, has anyone here done much with dedicated stereo cameras? Most of them are such unreliable junk, but I messed with a Stereo Realist that seemed nice once.

Sure that works. The optimum amount of horizontal sliding for realistic image equals with this thel average distance between your eyes (roughly 62 mm.

 

[RLangham]

Sure that works. The optimum amount of horizontal sliding for realistic image equals with this thel average distance between your eyes (roughly 62 mm.

Yeah, which comes out to about two and a half inches. I actually just judged it by having my face close to the tripod and lining my eye up with the viewfinder, then sliding it so it was in line with the other eye. (Then of course I checked to make sure it was still parallel with the back of the tripod head before tightening it all the way down.

I'm going to try shooting stereo handheld on my next roll, which will require more cleaning-up after I scan it, but which should be a fun challenge.

 

[Billy Axeman]

Pentax K5-II, Pentax-A 50mm f/2.8 Macro
Horizontal shift 5 cm.

https://wrb.home.xs4all.nl/Photos_2019_2/Photos_CrossEyedStereo_01/Stereo_01.htm
https://wrb.home.xs4all.nl/Photos_2019_2/Photos_CrossEyedStereo_02/Stereo_02.htm

 

[Donald Qualls]

@Billy Axeman Nice! Clean, crisp, and the separation is just right!

 

[MFstooges]

So I have a borrowed Manfrotto tripod--one of their pretty basic models, probably for high-end amateurs or maybe videographers, but it's the only stable tripod I have, besides a very small rigid steel one from a telescope. I was looking at it the other day, and since I had just developed an old roll of film from before I sold my stereo camera, I had a thought: two-shot stereo photography. I'd done it once before, sliding my phone camera along a windowsill, but I don't think I slid it far enough to give realistic depth.

So the tripod has a big cork-padded head on it with a long slot for the mounting bolt to slide in, designed so that if you're using the tripod in the most sensible orientation, the bolt slides side-to-side, presumably since 35mm cameras range from having their tripod bushing in the middle to having it all the way at one end.

I mounted my Zenit S (it was what was loaded) and went outside to try some test shots, using this method: I took a shot with the camera mounted so that the bolt was at the right end of the slot, then I wound on and shifted the camera left by about the distance between my eyes (say about two and a half inches, maybe a little less), making very sure to keep the camera parallel to the edge of the tripod head in both shots, and being careful not to jostle the tripod.

It took me some messing around in Irfran, and I had to downgrade the quality to upload it, but here's crops from one of my test pairs, arranged so that you can cross your eyes and see the stereo image. (And yes, I'm aware of the scratches and I'm diagnosing the problem. One thing was that I had a bunch of old film cans piled up in my dark bag.)

Has anyone else here had much xsuccess doing this?

Now, what I really want is a mirror-box type stereo attachment, but most of them are so rare and expensive, and anyways I'd really want one that has threading for a 52mm filter ring (so I could use it with my Canon and Nikon 50mm's and zoom lenses or adapt it down to 48mm for my Minolta and Pentax 50mm's, but until then this method has some cool characteristics. By the way, has anyone here done much with dedicated stereo cameras? Most of them are such unreliable junk, but I messed with a Stereo Realist that seemed nice once.

I was tempted to do this. Is there a simple way to calculate correct focal length, aperture and L-R distance?

 

[Donald Qualls]

I was tempted to do this. Is there a simple way to calculate correct focal length, aperture and L-R distance?

I only have rules of thumb, but: Use a normal or slightly wide lens (45-50 mm on 35mm full frame), stop down some for depth of field, make sure both shots are the same settings and light doesn't change between, and the side movement distance should be close to human interocular distance -- reasonable to use any value between about 60 and 70 mm. You can and probably should use a wider separation for things like stereo landscapes (which will look flat at eye separation unless you have prominent foreground objects within about fifty feet of the tripod).