Re: Stereo? No problem!

[egoldste@xxxxxxxxxx (Eric Goldstein)]

At 1:40 AM 1/30/96, Dr. George A. Themelis wrote:
>Are you talking about stereo as an art form only?  Stereo is certainly
>technically more complicated than mono.  As a great man once said, "Stereo
>must be technically perfect to be good".

My contention is that stereo is not more technically complicated if the
result is to please the _average_ picture taker.

Remember the example of your mother, George, who showed you her completely
out-of-focus plano portrait with great pride, fully believing it is a "good
picture?" She, and the vast majority of ordinary picture-takers out there,
would not believe that "Stereo must be technically perfect to be good."
Most stereo picture-takers were (and probably still are) satisfied with
"snaps" taken with their kodak stereos (designed to be the point-and-shoot
cameras of their day with zone focus, aperture indicates for daylight
conditions, etc), and mounted by the processor, without much regard for the
window, alignment, etc. Hundreds of thousands of stereo cameras were sold
to the average joe who wanted to record the timeline of his life, and did
so _to_his/her_standards_of_acceptability with sheer delight.

For example, we could take your mom on an outing to a "sunny 16" situation,
preset the camera, and let her snap away with you and the kids (with a
kodak or revere, not a realist :-)), then send the film to the lab to
process and mount. I'll bet she would enjoy at least several of those
stereo shots, technically imperfect though they may be. As many as if she
were shooting plano with a P&S.

Let's judge apples to apples here. To meet more elevated standards of
acceptability, plano photography has to be practiced with far more
complexity than your mother or the average picture-taker is capable of. As
evidence, I'd sight the fact that even in professional hands, not a lot of
_great_ pictures come from P & S cameras, and when they do, they are often
the result of either over-ridden/compensated automation, or are
situationally expressive rather than technical masterpieces.

>Stereo sound is completely different.

I think this gets to the heart of the matter, namely that we are discussing
the same point from two different standards.

To the average listener, a CD is a CD is a CD, either they like the music,
songs, style, etc., or they don't. But to the initiated, the enthusiast, or
the professional, "stereo SOUND must be technically perfect to be good."
The enthusiast cringes when he/she hears a marginal stereo recording (that
is, most stereo recordings!), and swoons over stereo techniques and touches
that are far too subtle for the average person to comprehend, much less
appreciate.

You, sir, are a stereofile (at least as it relates to photography), and you
take (and mount) your pictures with the technical sophistication necessary
to satisfy your exacting standards. I suspect those standards are a
_little_ higher than the average person's.

Eric G.
egoldste@xxxxxx



------------------------------

End of PHOTO-3D Digest 1148
***************************