P3D Re: Realist system flawed?

[Eric Goldstein <egoldste@xxxxxx>]

Re: Ortho Stereo... some very interesting points raised here by all...

I'd just add that George T presented a little heard but important aspect
of 2-D photography: namely, that orthoscopic viewing is just as
essential for "natural" rendition as in stereo photography. Yet if this
is so, why do so few people even know about or care about ortho viewing
of flat photographs?

john bercovitz wrote with regard to stereo photography:

> It (non-ortho) becomes less noticeable with time

And that is the answer for 2D photography as well. A simple
demonstration is to examine a traditional photo which exhibits obvious
wide angle effect by viewing it close up, from where the camera shot it.
Suddenly, the photo does not exhibit any wide angle effect at all; it;s
just as if you were standing there in place of the camera.

Why don't we both to correct perspective distortion in viewing 2D
photography? Because we are "used to it," because it has become part of
our visual grammar of what is within the realm of tolerable or even
"normal." The proof of this comes in the form of your daily newspaper,
which uses wide-angle or long-lens photography in place of "normal"
perspective photography almost constantly. Twenty or more years ago,
even a moderately wide angle lens such as a 28 mm (on 24 x 36 format)
produced images which were in ordinary circumstances considered
uncomfortable to view and reserved for art photography or unusual
depictions. Today, your newspaper is full of shots taken with 18-21 mm
lenses, and nobody's sticking their noses into the newsprint to correct
the perspective.

The same is true for stereo. View even a moderate amount of non-ortho
stereo with any 50's camera-viewer system and one rapidly becomes
acclaimated to the perspective shift. Fortunately, this opens the road
for more creative photography, with options for lens fl and POV.

Not to get too metaphysical on you here, Boris or John or any other
orthosexuals out there, but with the easy and rapid accomodation most
people can make to non-ortho situations and with photography having all
kinds of artistic possibilities resulting from these accomodations,
what's the point of the stricture?


Eric G.


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