Results: Belplasca with VM 36" closeup & lenticular test

[P3D Elliott Swanson <e3d@xxxxxxxxxx>]

First, I really pushed the limits in the first round of tests. I built a
miniature undersea setup, using a 1/6 scale model of Captain Nemo of
"20,000 Leagues Under the Sea" fame (sculpted by Jim Danforth for Disney
Studio execs), surrounded him with crushed shells, sand, and plastic
plants from Pet Co's aquarium dept, and also an undersea backdrop from the
same source. Illumination was a color balanced (blue) incandescent flood,
with reflectors to backlight the figure.

The closest foreground object (a plant) was 17", Nemo was at 21", and the
backdrop was at 31". The optimum exposure was 1/2 second at f11, using ASA
100 Elite 2. The camera was set at 1 meter. The hyper distortion of the
foreground was significant. You can't get away with working this close. 
But the background (a 2D photo/print) showed nearly identical coverage in
the left and right pair. At the 1 meter setting on the camera the
background is soft, but sharpens very nicely when the focus of the camera
is adjusted to 2 meters. 

I need to do another round of tests, but It's pretty safe to assume that
with the VM 36" adapter, you can shoot full 7p images with the Belplasca
at 36" to the subject, and have good stereo. The sharpness of the
Belplasca lenses is retained with the VM cu adapter. It's necessary to
control the background very carefully.

There's a lot of potential use for this combo, imho. 

Also, I shot a series of 4p slides using heavy blue and yellow filtration
with the Olympus Pen FT and a rail, at the same distances, using 1/2 inch
of shift for the 3D. They came out really neat. I changed the exposure
values to use f5.6 in order to soften the foreground and background for an
underwatery effect.

Also also, I loaded the Pen FT with print film, and, using an Imagetech
Imagetrack rail, I shot a lenticular sequence of Nemo. For the lenticular,
I went back to a smaller aperture. I had the test developed and printed,
then mounted the results (the two extreme left/right images of the 3 image
lenticular sequence) in a Q-VU mount, then sent the negative off to
Imagetech for 5x7 lenticular prints. From the print test, this will also
be a pretty interesting image in lenticular format. 

Elliott


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