3D stereo photography
Two eyes are better than one
Photography is a marvellous means of taking a perfectly imperfect image of the world around us. Why 'imperfectly perfect'? Because there is a substantial difference between the view recorded by a camera, and the same view seen with our own eyes: the normal camera view is a flat, 2-dimensional affair, while our eyes see the world in three dimensions. It didn't take long for early photographers to realise this photographic failing, and devise methods of preserving the 3D view; thus was born the practice of stereophotography.
The Victorian era saw an enthusiastic uptake of the stereo process, with dedicated viewers being produced that were designed to allow you to view two prints side by side, so restoring a sense of depth from the original scene. Of course, it was not a genuine 3D process, as you could not move to one side to see behind foreground objects; nevertheless, 3D viewing systems have a distinct appeal that has never quite gone away, more than 150 years after the first stereophotographs were produced. Indeed, there has been a resurgence in 3D cinema, with many major films releases in 3D format.
Various specialist cameras have been produced, with pairs of lenses allowing the simultaneous exposure of pairs of images, each lens taking a slightly different photograph from the other. It is the slight difference in perspective that allows us to simulate stereo vision: the two lenses take the place of our two eyes, and when the photographs are placed in an appropriate viewer, the brain is tricked into thinking that it is viewing a normal scene, and so the 3D effect is generated as normal.
The Victorian era saw an enthusiastic uptake of the stereo process, with dedicated viewers being produced that were designed to allow you to view two prints side by side, so restoring a sense of depth from the original scene. Of course, it was not a genuine 3D process, as you could not move to one side to see behind foreground objects; nevertheless, 3D viewing systems have a distinct appeal that has never quite gone away, more than 150 years after the first stereophotographs were produced. Indeed, there has been a resurgence in 3D cinema, with many major films releases in 3D format.
Various specialist cameras have been produced, with pairs of lenses allowing the simultaneous exposure of pairs of images, each lens taking a slightly different photograph from the other. It is the slight difference in perspective that allows us to simulate stereo vision: the two lenses take the place of our two eyes, and when the photographs are placed in an appropriate viewer, the brain is tricked into thinking that it is viewing a normal scene, and so the 3D effect is generated as normal.
