In an exploration of my new interest in 3D photography I hit ebay and purchased a Loreo 3D Lens in a Cap stereo lens for my Nikon D70. It arrived yesterday and I’ve not been able to stop playing with it since. This is a photo I took of the lens and my very first anaglyph photo attempt.
Of course, you’ll need a pair of 3D red and cyan anaglyph glasses to view my handiwork. They’re very cheap and easy to pick up on ebay. I’d go for the cheaper and more awesome classic white cardboard variety (think the funeral dream sequence in Heathers) over the new sun glasses version. We got both to try them out and the latter has an issue with the cyan lens and doesn’t seem to work properly. I’ll blog properly about them in more depth in future blog posts.
The stereo lens takes two images at the same time from slightly different angles. In GIMP I transpose them and convert the layers to red and cyan using an anaglyph script plugin, moving the layers until I get the desired effect. It’s surprisingly easy and highly addictive.
The lense has 3 focal lengths identified by “Flower”: Near (1-2.5m), “Portrait”: Midrange (2 -6m) and “Landscape”: Far (5m – “infinity”). I find that I like the simplicity of this and frees me from worrying so much about exactness.
It’s so light it feels toylike and has an awesome retro look to it. I was concerned about it’s compatibility with my camera but it mounts snugly and works on the manual setting just fine. It took me a while to work out the flash as many sites say that it works on the ttl setting, but on the D70 it seems to work on manual only.
It’s a different mindset to get into in actually framing and composing shots. It seems the 3D aspect hits hardest when the image has a foreground, midrange and background in order to show depth. I find myself sizing up potential shots in terms of depth as opposed to anything else. Subjects that were once mundane to me begin to have appeal, like ordinary street signs, tree branches and traffic!
I’m so wrapt that this cool analogue technology has been adapted for the digital era. It’s not the best 3D technology that’s available these days but it’s got such awesome character and texture. Love it.
New 3D stereo lens!
Of course, you’ll need a pair of 3D red and cyan anaglyph glasses to view my handiwork. They’re very cheap and easy to pick up on ebay. I’d go for the cheaper and more awesome classic white cardboard variety (think the funeral dream sequence in Heathers) over the new sun glasses version. We got both to try them out and the latter has an issue with the cyan lens and doesn’t seem to work properly. I’ll blog properly about them in more depth in future blog posts.
The stereo lens takes two images at the same time from slightly different angles. In GIMP I transpose them and convert the layers to red and cyan using an anaglyph script plugin, moving the layers until I get the desired effect. It’s surprisingly easy and highly addictive.
The lense has 3 focal lengths identified by “Flower”: Near (1-2.5m), “Portrait”: Midrange (2 -6m) and “Landscape”: Far (5m – “infinity”). I find that I like the simplicity of this and frees me from worrying so much about exactness.
It’s so light it feels toylike and has an awesome retro look to it. I was concerned about it’s compatibility with my camera but it mounts snugly and works on the manual setting just fine. It took me a while to work out the flash as many sites say that it works on the ttl setting, but on the D70 it seems to work on manual only.
It’s a different mindset to get into in actually framing and composing shots. It seems the 3D aspect hits hardest when the image has a foreground, midrange and background in order to show depth. I find myself sizing up potential shots in terms of depth as opposed to anything else. Subjects that were once mundane to me begin to have appeal, like ordinary street signs, tree branches and traffic!
I’m so wrapt that this cool analogue technology has been adapted for the digital era. It’s not the best 3D technology that’s available these days but it’s got such awesome character and texture. Love it.