Re: Is hyper more natural than hypo?

[P3D Gregory J. Wageman <gjw@xxxxxxxxxx>]

George Themelis replied:

>Greg, put a flat slide (two identical pictures) of a scene that should 
>normally have plenty of depth, in your red button viewer.  Feels so weird!
>It is not the same as converging both eyes in a single image or closing one
>eye.  

No, of course it isn't the same.  Your eyes are very much relaxed and
converged near "infinity", while looking at something that's inches
away.  Very unnatural, *physically* speaking.  But the lack of depth
would bother no one who's ever seen an ordinary photograph.  There
are even binocular slide viewers that allow you to look at a single
35mm slide with both eyes, and binocular non-stereoscopic microscopes.
The point being that people easily get used to binocular vision without
much or any depth.

>But let's not go to extremes.  The fact that we are familiar with flat 
>images does not make us familiar with mild hypostereo, which makes things
>look bigger.

>I can usually recognize pictures taken with a Nimslo or a ISO Duplex (both
>have reduced interocular spacing) and can also recognize hyperstereos with 
>twin SLRS side-by-side (about 6" spacing), provided (in both cases) that I
>am looking at a familiar scene with close-by objects.

I've used the Nishika to take some half-frames, and mounted them in
Realist-format mounts.  The only thing "unnatural" I find about them
is the lack of depth.  I don't find that they make things look "bigger".
I believe the brain compensates for that effect with hypos much more
easily than with hypers (extreme hypers, anyway).  We "know" what
size the objects are supposed to be, so we see them that way (in hypos).

	-Greg W.


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