P3D Re: Concise History of Stereoscopic Imaging

[Duncan Waldron <J.Waldron@xxxxxxxxx>]

Dr. T. wrote:

> Briefly, this is my understanding of the history of stereo:
> ...(deleted)...
> 3. Why did Wheatstone use drawings and not actual stereoscopic pictures? 
> Because there was no photography in 1833!  Actually, photography was just
> coming out and one of the first applications of photography was to take
> stereo pairs. Wheatstone in his second paper on the subject, 14 years
> later (1852) writes that 6 months after the appearance of his first paper,
> at his request, Talbot (Paul? :-)) and coworkers took the first stereoscopic
> photographs of statues, buildings and even portraits of living persons. 
> These were the first stereoscopic photographs ever recorded...

William Henry Fox Talbot was in at the start of photography in a
reproducible form as early as 1841 (the Calotype), although I wasn't aware
of his activities in stereo. One of his contemporaries, the polymath
Astronomer Royal for Scotland Charles Piazzi Smyth, who was taking
Calotypes by 1847, did a number of stereo photographs in Russia and Egypt
in the 1850s. He was also the first person to take an indoor flash
photograph - with a tray of magnesium - in one of the pyramids. Clever
lad!

Thanks for the potted history, George.
Duncan W.




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