Pham Minh Son wrote:
3-D Components:
1. Lens resolving power (actuance/micro-contrast) - separates finest details from each other and not smooshing them together.
2. Aperature - depth of field
3. Lens Focal Length - the longer the focal length the more the subject is pull away from the background.
4. Format - the larger the format the less spatial compression and due to wide angle lens are at longer focal length in comparison to the 135 mm format. 8X10 is where you will see the most natural element of your image begin.
5. Dynamic Range - The higher the dynamic range the better the tonality changes and make your image appear real instead of flat.
6. Sharpening - total sharpening will compress the spatial information and create artifact; while selective sharpening will help to create the longer lens and the depth of field effects.
7. Light Effect
Thus, 5 out of 7 components is direct or indirect effect of lens and only dynamic range of the sensor and light effect as the other components to attenuate the flatness of 2-D image to appear 3-D.
#4 is a really good point. People who shoot 11x14 cameras can take head-and-shoulders portraits at life size, i.e. a 1:1 macro. On 8x10 it's less than 1:1 but it's still incredibly life-like.
Otherwise, I agree with lighting and resolving power and hqave some disagreements with the rest. I particularly do not agree with #5, the dynamic range. Dynamic range is only important with respect to the scene-specific lighting. A very low DR film like Velvia is majestic for flat lighting, and a very high DR film like NPS is majestic for very contrasty lighting. There's nothing intrinsic about a high DR that creates a 3D look. What's important is matching DR to the requirements of the scene.
I also don't agree with #3. This point is only true when DOF is used to separate the subject from the background. But longer focal lengths squash the perspective, flatten the features, and make the background look like it's encroaching on the subject. Wide lenses will separate the features. It's a paradox that in the canyon shot on the previous page it has that compressed look with a wide lens, but as I said before that's because the subject is so huge that it would take a yet wider lens to really feel like a wide angle shot. I'd subsume the aperture/DOF question (#2) under this as well.
Finally, sharpness can contribute to a 3D effect, but that is true whether you arrive at that through sharpening or by using a sharp lens/technique to begin with. We have a century and a half of sharp, 3D-looking film images, the majority of which never had a USM in the darkroom. But sharpness can also be a detriment to some photos, particularly portraits in which a 3D effect is better rendered by a soft lighting effect, with curves and shapes being highlighted by the lens rather than hairs and blemishes.
> ...I believe the 3D look here is due almost exclusively to the characteristics of the lens...
What 3D look? A very nice expertly chosen and composed picture, but remarkable in the total absence of 3D. I feel no excitement because my brain sees no precipice and I am not going to fall into it. The lens has robbed a potentially stunning picture of everything it needs: presence.
Edited by brainiac on May 16, 2007 at 03:43 PM GMT
Just an example of the effect that Saturation and Contrast can have in the illusion of depth(3D or whatever you wish to label it). People are always talking about the 3D look and depth of Film and how digital is so flat looking(which came to be known as a typical digital look). One of the reasons I contend is that film images we are used to viewing have more contrast, saturation and usually a slight to heavy color cast. The out of camera image is even flatter than the first below and of course the second is over the top but does appear to me to show more depth...
Interesting examples Tariq. The second absolutely shows more depth. But the first absolutely shows more detail. Of course you've sacrificed some shadows and highlights as well as some subtle color gradations in order to produce the second image. It demonstrates, however, that effective color and contrast relationships can mean a lot more than pure detail when it comes to depth.
DrPablo wrote:
Interesting examples Tariq. The second absolutely shows more depth. But the first absolutely shows more detail. Of course you've sacrificed some shadows and highlights as well as some subtle color gradations in order to produce the second image. It demonstrates, however, that effective color and contrast relationships can mean a lot more than pure detail when it comes to depth.
Thats what I thought as well and I think it goes against some of Phams points, particularly concerning Dynamic Range and the use of a long lens. I'm sure most hard set rules have exceptions.
DrPablo wrote:
Woody / Tariq, I actually don't see it as a very 3D-looking picture at all. That's not a negative criticism, because it's a beautiful picture. But it does not look 3D to me in the slightest, in fact it looks more like a flat painting.
There are a few reasons. First, despite the wide angle lens, the huge size of the landscape features (and their proximity) makes it look extremely compressed, almost like a telephoto look. Its 3-dimensionality is very much lost by the almost superimposition of the foreground and background.
Secondly, there are no recognizable points of reference. Even the bush on the ridge doesn't help, because it's hard to tell how big it is. Recognizable things like a human on that foreground ledge would make the scale more obvious.
Finally, the contrast and colors both have a pretty narrow range. It has a pastel look such that the colors and contrast do not suggest depth, and the shadows are insufficient to suggest texture. I suspect that's more than anything the lighting you had to deal with.
Incidentally, jaapv's picture does not look particularly 3D to me either. I think this is because the background is very noisy, though, and the noise is made more prominent by the strangely high degree of saturation (more than I'd expect for the lighting) -- so the noisy background ends up being too distracting to really serve as a backdrop for a textured, 3D-looking picture, and the foreground colors are distracting in their own way (by virtue of the saturation)....Show more →
I agree with DrPablo about the symptoms, but not the cure.
IMO, based on using and testing Leica, Zeiss, Canon, Nikon and Olympus bodies and glass over the last couple of years, there is quite another reason why both these images lack any 3D effect. The 3D effect needs deep rich black even if only very small parts of the picture require it, and it needs good realistic contrast in the very dark areas which approach those black points. That makes the noise floor very very important for 3D. It also makes lens contrast very very important. It is my belief that noisy sensors and certain otherwise excellent lenses are not very good at producing images that look 3D.
The result is, exactly as you say, like a beautiful painting. Not a window. The CZ21 can produce 3D effect on a Canon body before you even take off the lens cap. Equally I have used German lenses which were otherwise truly peerless, but which produced very little 3D effect compared to lesser lenses.
Both of these expertly taken pictures should have 'pop', but lack it. It isn't because of what's in them or how they were taken. It's the glass and the sensor. If 3D effect is one of your essential criteria in a lens then I think you will choose lenses that routinely give you more exciting pictures.
Edited by brainiac on May 16, 2007 at 04:30 PM GMT
brainiac wrote:
I agree with DrPablo about the symptoms, but not the cure.
IMO, based on using and testing Leica, Zeiss, Canon, Nikon and Olympus bodies and glass over the last couple of years, there is quite another reason why both these images lack any 3D effect. The 3D effect needs deep rich black even if only very small parts of the picture require it, and it needs good realistic contrast in the very dark areas which approach those black points. That makes the noise floor very very important for 3D. It also makes lens contrast very very important. It is my belief that noisy sensors and certain otherwise excellent lenses are not very good at producing images that look 3D.
The result is, exactly as you say, like a beautiful painting. Not a window. The CZ21 can produce 3D effect on a Canon body before you even take off the lens cap. Equally I have used German lenses which were otherwise truly peerless, but which produced very little 3D effect compared to lesser lenses....Show more →
The only disagreement I might make is about the noise. Film grain(a type of noise) can actually aid an image in the perception of depth. I think judicial use of slight grain in a digital image has a similar effect. But you perhaps are speaking of a different type of noise. Definately agree about the lens contrast and a good black as factors.
I agree with Tariq regarding film grain, which is somehow not so much a detriment. I think the main reason is that film grain predominantly shows up in the highlights and upper midtones, so it doesn't prevent the shadows from looking so dark.
I also agree that dark, deep shadows are really important. But I'd add that high, luminous highlights are just as important as well.
Interestingly, until the last few pages we haven't really critically looked at many posted images to agree on whether they truly meet our standards for 3D or not, what are the notable features and common themes, and how that might be generalized to technique and equipment.
brainiac wrote:
I agree with DrPablo about the symptoms, but not the cure.
IMO, based on using and testing Leica, Zeiss, Canon, Nikon and Olympus bodies and glass over the last couple of years, there is quite another reason why both these images lack any 3D effect. The 3D effect needs deep rich black even if only very small parts of the picture require it, and it needs good realistic contrast in the very dark areas which approach those black points. That makes the noise floor very very important for 3D. It also makes lens contrast very very important. It is my belief that noisy sensors and certain otherwise excellent lenses are not very good at producing images that look 3D.
The result is, exactly as you say, like a beautiful painting. Not a window. The CZ21 can produce 3D effect on a Canon body before you even take off the lens cap. Equally I have used German lenses which were otherwise truly peerless, but which produced very little 3D effect compared to lesser lenses.
Both of these expertly taken pictures should have 'pop', but lack it. It isn't because of what's in them or how they were taken. It's the glass and the sensor. If 3D effect is one of your essential criteria in a lens then I think you will choose lenses that routinely give you more exciting pictures.
Edited by brainiac on May 16, 2007 at 04:30 PM GMT...Show more →
I have no disagreement with the comments here and thanks for the praise of the image, regardless of the 3D presence. It is too bad that you can't see the 22x36 print of this image. I believe you would then see that there is significant 3D. But no matter. In the end it is the final print which determines the worth of the work, regardless of reasons.
Thanks for all the commentary.......it is appreciated
woodyspedden wrote:
It is too bad that you can't see the 22x36 print of this image. I believe you would then see that there is significant 3D. But no matter. In the end it is the final print which determines the worth of the work, regardless of reasons.
The conversation over these now nearly 300 posts has never been about how to make a good image. It's about how to make a 3D look. A 3D appearance is neither necessary nor sufficient for an image to be good or even great. While it's an extremely positive attribute when present, it is not necessarily a negative attribute when absent. So no one questions the quality of your image nor how nice it must look in print, but of course there are numerous other things that make your picture successful (clarity, composition, subtle transitions of pleasing colors, the loneliness of that one bush, etc).
About dynamic range. Normally, excessive DR detracts from image appearance. You insist on showing subtle detail in shadows and highligths, so the midtones contrast gets flatened. I've seen plenty of B/W images with large proportions of pure black, or pure white, or both, so the gain in contrast adds to the relation between light and shadows that draw the volume and guides the eye across the image, and make the textures more apparent. The detail should be present where needed, and not everywhere. For landscapes, lighting is extremely important: light should appear as coming from inside the picture. The more contrast you have to play with, the easier to achieve. Color balance is also important: instead of trying to make a perfect white balance adjustment, which our chromatic adaption doesn't do either, let yourself be lead by your own taste/perception.
About warm colors aproaching and cool receding. I think this is an old misconception. The blue sky is the most distant element and distant mountains appear bluish. Besides, visual resolution is worse for blue because blue cones are absent on the fovea, and blue color peaks chrominance at relatively low luminace. But this does not relate to color itself receding or aproaching, unless an image contains blue sky or distant mountains, or if you want to evoke these ideas even in an abstract composition. Besides, many conceptions about color are purely culturals (for instance, read means danger). Make this experiment: put two coloured squares on a gray background. One of them is red-orange in hue (the warmest) and the other middle blue (the cooler). Make chrominance and luminance the same. You can use LAB mode for this. Which one appear to recede/approach? I don't think you can say.
If resolution is of importance, would an image which has a natural 3D-effect (light, DOF and so on) show the 3D look in a 10x15 cm print, but the same image wouldn't when printed at say 50x75cm? I dont believe it, rather it is there or it isnt.
I would suggest that a large print size gives us a feeling of beeing there when looking at an image which we might describe as 3D what would mean that Image quality is important but not per se resolution.
Andi Dietrich wrote:
If resolution is of importance, would an image which has a natural 3D-effect (light, DOF and so on) show the 3D look in a 10x15 cm print, but the same image wouldn't when printed at say 50x75cm?
DrPablo wrote:
Interestingly, until the last few pages we haven't really critically looked at many posted images to agree on whether they truly meet our standards for 3D or not, what are the notable features and common themes, and how that might be generalized to technique and equipment.
As we are speaking about 3D looking images represented on a flat surface, we probably agree that the 3D look is created by our brains. I believe actually that all posters saw the 3D effect in their own images as they had a strong and living souvenir of the scene they photographed. The photographers but also the viewers memory is certainly of importance.
