P3D Re: aperture when shooting in stereo

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

>From: nathankreuter@xxxxxxxxxxx (nathan kreuter)

>Since I began shooting in stereo, which wasn't long ago, a friend 
>told me to always shoot with my lenses as wide open as possible for 
>maximum stereo effect.  

Huh?  Are you sure you did not get this the wrong way?  
Aperture has nothing to do with the stereo effect.  It
affects the sharpness in the picture and it goes the
other way around:  Smaller apertures give sharper pictures
(as a rule) because of the reduction of lens aberrations
and also increase of depth of field.

>I have done this and have no complaints.  
>Since the lenses on my rangefinders are f/1.7 this isn't difficult.  

If you ever try this with a stereo camera from the '50s
outdoors on a sunny day, you will realize you have a problem.
With 100 ASA film for example, sunny day exposure is f16
at 1/100.  The top speed in most of these cameras is between
1/100 and 1/200.  So it is impossible to use anything wider
than f11.

As we discussed recently, f8 and f11 appear to be very good
aperture choices for ordinary stereo photography.

George Themelis


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