P3D Re: boris starosta's site

["Dr. George A. Themelis" <DrT-3d@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

I too enjoyed Boris' excellent site:

http://starosta.com/3dshowcase/index.html

I do have a few comments regarding Boris' philosophy of stereo 
photography and I sense a comflict between Boris' personal interests
and his desire to present his images to the public.  He writes:

>As an illustrator, my preference has been to reproduce reality as 
>faithfully as possible. With this goal, the ideal application of 
>stereo is quite limited. Viewing slide pairs with my "Pinsharp" or 
>Franka viewers, which have a focal length of around 50mm, thus 
>requires that I shoot only with 50mm lenses.  Maximizing realism also 
>precludes the shooting of hyperstereos, and to a lesser extent, 
>macros (I do intend to try some mild macros with an interocular 
>distance close to standard). Therefore, the camera lenses must be 
>spaced about 65mm apart.

My advice to Boris is to go beyond "ortho" and explore ALL faces
of the stereo experience.

It is interesting that the inexpensive Pinsharp viewer is dictating 
what lenses he uses in his stereo cameras.  I would go the other way
around:  Use what lenses I have available and then worry how to view
the images.  Boris acknowledges that most people will not view his
computer images in a way that satisfies the ortho conditions.  The
same is true for projected images.  Then, why over-worry about ortho?

I think it is very restrictive to ONLY use 50 mm lenses in a twin
rig.  Also, how does Boris gets his 65 mm lens' spacing with the
bottom-to-bottom twin SLR rig?

>I also have concentrated my work on close-ups. Although the human 
>mind can discern depth using stereopsis cues out to probably a 
>hundred feet or more - this assumes perfect eyesight, and therefore a 
>very high resolution image. In slide film images, or worse (computer 
>or TV images), with their limited resolution, stereopsis cues must be 
>more pronounced to be useful, and this is the case only with objects 
>relatively close to the camera. Thus, I prefer to photograph subjects
>within two to three feet, and not more than ten to twenty feet away 
>at most. Such close-ups also seem to work best with people who are 
>partially "stereo blind". Among these viewers, a very bold close up 
>shot will sometimes succeed, where a scenic landscape will not. 
>Within the spectrum of stereo viewing ability, it seems that the 
>bolder the stereo effect, the greater the number of people that will 
>enjoy it.  I want the greatest number of people to enjoy stereoscopy.
  
Let's see if I get this right... Slide film has limited resolution 
(compared to what?  Our eyes?)  And so does the computer monitor.
So, I only shoot objects within 2-3 feet from the camera, or 10-20
feet the most.  I do this so that partially stereo blind people
can enjoy my images.  So I restrict my photography to what will
appear good to partially stereo blind people who are viewing my 
images in a computer monitor.  This comes from a person who is only 
using 50 mm lenses in his cameras because they match HIS 50 mm
viewer lenses.  Am I the only one who sees a problem with this?

I use slide film and take many pictures where there is nothing in
the first 10-20 feet (yes Ron, I do!)  I like those pictures and 
they look great in my viewer.  There is plenty of depth 20 feet 
away from the camera.  These pictures would not have worked well 
in a computer monitor.  I would not use them for this purpose but
would share them with others through a viewer and even in 
projection.

>Architecture
>I consider stereo photography to be of borderline utility in 
>architecture. Most buildings are too large and must be placed
>too far from the camera for stereo cues to make much of a 
>contribution to spatial perception.

Some of my best images are of buildings.  Stereo photography has been
and could be a great tool for teaching architecture.  (I wonder if
our resident professor of Architecture agrees with that...)
We have all seen the models that architects make to show as how
a future site will look like.  Hyperstereos will give you the same
effect.  So, what is wrong with that?

I am sorry to sound critical.  This is an excellent site and I 
would like to see it enriched with a few hyper and hypo stereos
(like the examples by Ron Labbe included in this site) or at least
see Boris enjoy those forms of stereo photography too.

Regards, George Themelis


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