P3D Fisheye stereos

[Greg Erker <erker@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Hi all,

  I got my test roll back from my circular
fisheye camera project:
http://www.angelfire.com/ca/erker/fisheye66.html

  Naturally the test shots were slidebar
stereos. I had previously done these with
a 0.42x fisheye adapter on a normal lens
(75mm on Bronica 6x6 slr) and liked the
effect but not the lack of sharpness from
the adapter. So the FE66 is supposed to
solve my problem.

  A VR (virtual reality) fellow I was
e-talking to (who has built his own FE
camera) asked me:
"I see from you pages you are mainly into stereo.
It got me thinking about stereo fisheye images -
and what do you get?- exaggerated
depth in the more central zone of the image(s)?
Things bulge forward in centre frame?"

  So last night I looked carefully at
my test shots and here is my answer:

---start---
  The view is somthing like looking at
a scene in a snow globe (those water
filled glass globes with fake snow inside).

  At the center of the scene you see
normal depth from the parallax in the
two shots. At the edges the scene seems
to curve away from you. This makes
sense since at 90 degrees from center
there is no parallax from shifting the
camera horizontally.

  In spite of the odd fisheye and
snow globe effect I really like these
fisheye scenes. In some ways it feels
very natural. Perhaps because it reproduces
your entire field of vision (including
peripheral vision). And you are used to
having no stereo vision in the periphery
since only one eye can see a specific
edge (left sees left, right only sees
right).
---end---

  Has anyone else tried fisheye stereos
and had the same feeling about them.
I know there was a FE shot in the Expo 2.
I remember enjoying it but don't recall
analyzing it.

  BTW the taking lens is 17mm FL and my
viewing lenses are 84mm FL so you would
expect a lot of stretch. I guess it's
there in the image (even noticable looking
at it in 2d {the perspective distortions})
but it doesn't seem to be a problem.

  Any comments?

Greg E.