Category Archives: 3D Tech

3D, 3D Tech, Cameras, Still photography, Techniques

How to: Shooting landscapes in hyperstereo 3D

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I like photographing landscapes in hyperstereo 3D because such photos often reveal hidden depth that we cannot see with our eyes or detect with our brain. This gives us an entirely new perspective on a scene.

My wife jokes that 3D photographers can take photographs with depth at any time, unlike 2D “flat photographers” who must wait around for the sun angle to give shadow contrast for enhancing depth features 🙂

When I take hyperstereo 3D, I almost always use a single camera. I start at the left most position and then take photos as I move the camera to the right. The picture of Mt St Helens was taken as a series of about 7 shots over about 70 feet of distance. I took a photo, walked to my right and took another photo. I did not have a good sense of the spacing that would be needed – and what the impact of close in subjects would have on the depth. So I just took many different lens spacings and chose the best later, when sitting at the computer.

For Mt St Helens, I knew I would need very wide lens spacing, which is why I took photos at 10 feet (over 3 meter) intervals. For closer subjects, I might only move the camera 1 foot (1/3d meter) between shots.

To keep the camera roughly aligned, I set the camera to display a grid overlay on the viewfinder. I position the crosshairs of the grid on a specific, very distant feature. As I move the camera, I keep the crosshairs pointed at that distant feature. In the case of the Mt St Helens volcano, which is many miles away, I use a corner of one of the snow fields as my alignment target.

If you think about how 3D works, if I was using a pair of precisely aligned cameras, each pointed off into the distance, at some point a long ways out there, the two cameras are effectively pointed at the same subject – we can’t distinguish, says, 6 inches of lens spacing, on a subject a few miles away!  For really distant subjects, a lens spacing measured in feet is still indistinguishable (in a practical sense).

After shooting, the photos are aligned and processed in Stereo PhotoMaker.

3D Tech, Cameras

Nice deal on the Nikon 1 system J1 camera package

I have a J1 and a J2 for use, especially, as a 3D pair. They are small, light weight, have interchangeable lenses, and sensor much larger than a typical compact camera (the industry calls it a 1″ sensor): Nikon 1 J1 DSLR with 10 30mm VR 30 110mm VR Lenses and Nikon Case Refurbished | eBay.

$199 for manufacturer refurbished J1, 10-30mm and 30-110mm lenses, and a small camera bag. I bought one of these from the same vendor months ago – very pleased with the camera.

I now often use these cameras as a walkabout camera because they are small and convenient, and unobtrusive in crowds.

Yeah, its only a 10 megapixel image but as you probably know, for a lot of shooting, that is an excellent image size, providing excellent quality, and better lowlight performance than a small point and shoot. You get DSLR like features (almost) with larger sensor, features, and lens options – in a point and shoot type package.

Funny thing is, when Nikon introduced the Nikon 1 cameras,
I just did not get the point of the camera. But oddly enough, I now have two of them and totally get it! I can see why the matching V series (V1, V2, V3) are a popular mirrorless format. If you want an eye viewfinder (rather than LCD panel), consider the V series.

P.S. I am just about to head out the door with the J1 with me, as a matter of fact 🙂

3D, 3D Tech, Editing, Software

Corel Video Studio Pro X7

Corel’s latest video editing software is now at version X7.

I did some quick tests to check on just a few features.

Plus side: It renders output video files super fast compared to many alternative editors. On my quad core Windows 7 system, rendering seems to be roughly “real time”. One minute of video is rendered in about one minute. That’s fast.

The program also features a 2k to 4k conversion feature. This definitely works but I am unable to evaluate the result as I do not have any 4k displays to watch it on. However, I did upload a test clip to Youtube and the result certainly looks good on my 2K TV (which means its downsized back down of course).

Editing is easy enough that I figured out most everything I wanted to do without resorting to help/documentation.

The package also includes a nifty Screen Capture utility for recording video clips from things you are doing on screen. This is great for creating tutorials. This utility worked great for me in my tests and would be worth buying the whole suite just for screen capture!

For editing 2D video, its quite respectable and priced inexpensively.

Minus side: Its 3D capabilities are very limited. It can import side-by-side and MVC video files, but it has no 3D video clip adjustment features. If you cannot fix parallax in post, its not terribly useful, unfortunately. And that’s too bad, because it also rendered my 3D MVC video clips faster than I expected.

Quick verdict: For 2D video editing, Corel Video Studio Pro X7 is an extremely fast editor – fast to edit, fast to preview and fast to render.  If your work is 2D oriented, this product should be on your list of editors to look at. But for 3D, its lacking in critical features such that its really not suitable for 3D work.

The product can be purchased and downloaded directly from Amazon:

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