Re: [photo-3d] Re: Medium format viewer

["Oleg Vorobyoff" <olegv@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Dr. T wrote:

>The examples of 5x7 vs. 8x10 and billboards viewed at
>different distances involve larger changes than 47 to 44mm.
>
>No physical threshold is involved here and it is impossible
>for me to accept that such a small change makes all the
>difference for you or anyone else.  It must be some other
>factor than the change in size involved here...

George, you ask such good questions.

When I first received my Themelized Red Button viewer I felt it was a great
improvement over the Franka: bigger, better, brighter.  But when my cousin,
a non-photographer, looked at  my slides, she preferred the Franka.  She
thought the view through it was more real.  After some careful viewing back
and forth, I had to agree.


The threshold involved is, of course, psychological, but that does not make
it any less valid.  There does seem to be a pretty well defined degree of
enlargement beyond which grain and a lack of sharpness become apparent.   In
many good photographs the most striking thing is an abundance of detail.  In
photographs that do depend on detail, the crucial factor, I think, is the
illusion of infinite detail.  You feel like getting closer to the picture to
see even more detail.  But when I can see the film grain or a lack of
sharpness, it is hard for me to maintain this illusion of infinite detail.
Grain seems to be even more destructive in a stereo photograph than in a
conventional one.  Rather than being something in the background that can be
ignored, it appears right up front as part of the surface texture of the
objects in the scene.  My eyes do not detect that artificial-looking texture
through 47mm viewing lenses but it is quite obvious through 44mm lenses.  It
is comparable to listening to poorly filtered digital sound.  Like defects
in conventional photograph, the constant hiss of an analog tape can be
ignored.  But the much fainter warbling in an otherwise perfect digital
recording soon gets irritating.  Stereo photography likewise ups the realism
ante.

That said, the larger, brighter view through the Red Button is wonderful for
photographs that do not beg to be scrutinized.  The lure of medium format is
getting the larger, brighter view without losing detail.

Oleg Vorobyoff