AUGUST 30, 2020: ABOVE INFINITY IN 3D
If you can't use both eyes together, this won't work. If you think you should be able to use both eyes together and yet you can not get the striking 3D effect, you may benefit from seeing an optometrist who emphasizes binocular vision.
Once you get the "3D," you may at first find this technique tiring. It actually is a beneficial type of eye exercise. If you play with this type of photo on a regular basis you may find that you develop the ability to read more efficiently, work on your computer while maintaining a higher level of alertness, and even that you have more accurate quick distance-judgement for sports.
The secret of using these for visual skills development is not to "hold the central photo" for long times, but rather to release it and see how quickly and easily you can get it back. Probably the ideal is to hold it for about 2 to 10 seconds, then release (look across the room, for instance), then look back at the photo and see how quickly you can get back into the "3D mode." Vary the amount of time you hold it.
You can scroll down for more photos, or click on the little triangle to your right to bring up the slide show.
PANDANUS LEAVES AND ORANGE FLOWERS
I think this one also is one of the more challenging ones, but I think you will really like the effect once you get it. For me, it's easier if I concentrate on first getting the 2 dangling orange flowers fused, and then the lower, loose flower, and then work my way into the Pandanus tree.
INFINITY POOL
Sun is just about to disappear. Probably most serious photographers out there will fault me on not removing the solar flares. I left them for 2 reasons: 1. My wife kinda likes these things, and 2. I thought it was interesting how 2 different supposedly identical cameras (both GoPro Hero 8) with identical settings and processed identically in Photoshop (all adjustments were simultaneous in Camera Raw) gave such noticeably different colors to the solar flare. I can't believe that it is due to the few inches of separation for the 2 cameras. Anyone with ideas on this, please leave comments!
EAST END OF INFINITY POOL
You can see the difference in the solar flares again here. I kept the cameras consistent as far as which was right and which was left. It's interesting that the larger flare is about the same color in both of these photos, and that the smaller one is more brown in the right-hand photo for both of them. I assume that the flares result from light interaction with lens surfaces. The difference in color makes me wonder if Go Pro maybe changed the anti-reflection coating on some of their lenses from one batch to the next.
ME
I sort of screwed up here, but you can use my screw-up as another cool visual-development activity. Fuse the photos so that you have the striking 3D. Now as you look down at my legs, can you still hold the 3D? If so, do you see my legs, the rock, or a combination? Can you make yourself switch back and forth, so that you see my legs for a while and then "hide" my legs behind the rock? Do you get stuck sometimes where you just can't make my legs disappear, or can't see my legs because the rock stays in the way?
Oh, and the screw up: I should have gotten someone with much more attractive legs for you to practice with! Sorry about that!
HOME MADE 3D CONTRAPTION
Before I got these cameras and made this contraption, I took 3D photos by clicking one camera, then moving the camera laterally a few inches and clicking again (trying to line the 2 shots up as perfectly as possible). That actually works quite well as long as you are taking photos of something stationary like rocks or a scene with total absence of wind (and no birds or animals). It doesn't take much movement of items within the scene to make it quite difficult for anyone to fuse the 2 photos together.
I decided to try GoPros for a few reasons: 1. The photo can be taken by verbal command. This solves the problem of figuring out how to synchronize the cameras. 2. GoPro cameras are small and light-weight, which is double-important for stereo-photography. It is easy to hold them both up to get a photo. 3. I thought that the ultra-wide angle of the GoPro cameras would enhance the 3D effect (I'm not sure I'm correct on this, but for now it seems to work OK). 4. While GoPro's are not inexpensive, they also are not tremendously costly. They seem to me to be a good trade between ruggedness, convenience, cost, photo quality, and ease of post-editing.
One "problem" I'm having is that there is a delay on the verbal command. Thank goodness this delay seems to be identical between the 2 cameras, but it still makes snapping any kind of action a challenge. I'm hoping to gain more skill on this as I figure out how to anticipate the action so that the shutter clicks at exactly the right split-second.
Thanks for viewing! I welcome any feedback (click on the caption icon beneath the photo to leave comments).
