Where does the 3D look come from?

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Archive 2007 · Where does the 3D look come from?

jshelly
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p.16 #1 · Where does the 3D look come from?

cogitech wrote:
jshelley,

HDTV stands for High Definition TeleVision.

High Definition means higher overall resolution.

Standard NTSC television resolution is 352x240. HDTV has various resloutions, but all are much higher than standard definition.

Regardless of this, as has been discussed throughout this thread, lighting and lens qualities can dramatically increase this 3D effect. The overall resolution of the final media certainly helps *display* the 3D effect, but it certainly does not *create* it.

BTW, bokeh does have something to do with it. Just watch "Lost" and you'll see. (I bet they are using Zeiss).

Don't watch Lost, but now I'll check it out. I'm currently addicted to Discovery HD

May 29, 2007 at 03:45 PM

Andi Dietrich
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p.16 #2 · Where does the 3D look come from?

Movies have the benefit of the (wonder!) movement. The lighting staff in todays cinema also does a wonderful job

You can see 3D with one eye only by moving your head, the brain is capable to put together moving images, in fact it misses something when there is no movement. Photography is more an art of abstraction than reality

May 29, 2007 at 04:00 PM

DrPablo
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p.16 #3 · Where does the 3D look come from?

cogitech wrote:
BTW, bokeh does have something to do with it. Just watch "Lost" and you'll see. (I bet they are using Zeiss).

They might be using Cooke. I don't know squat about movie camera lenses, but Cooke makes lenses for both movie cameras and for large format cameras -- and their LF lenses are astounding.

May 29, 2007 at 04:33 PM

J.A.F. Doorhof
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p.16 #4 · Where does the 3D look come from?

Normal television is between 550-720x480 for DVD 720x480.
This is interlaced so actually you are seeing 720x320 per field.

HDTV is 1280x720 Progressive or 1920x1080 Interlaced and sometimes 1920x1080 Progressive.

The depth you see in HDTV is very easily explained.
The blackdetail is MUCH better in HD also there is much more microdetail, on DVD and TV there is often a filter used which introduces halos from sharpening, this will give you a very flat looking picture.
With HD this is much less the case resulting in a more 3D look.

The resolution also helps greatly when watching 50" and plus but the depth of a TV signal/DVD or HD is mainly due to:

Absolute blacklevel, grayscale perfomance, blacklevel detail, Ansi Contrast.

If you have an older generation plasma or LCD you will NOT see all the depth that is there with a new generation or CRT.
The ansicontrast is also very important, forget full on full off contrast often quoted by the manufactors, they all lie in some sort.

I have mentioned it earlier in this thread but the 3D look of a picture is according to me:"

CoC or if you like sensor size, the 5D will give more 3D than a 30D and a Hasselblad will give more than the 5D.
Microcontrast, this will give you the sense of real.
Contrast in the lens (blacklevel) or flare resistance.

AND light, without proper light there is no depth but only flat.

Especially the flareresistance of a lens is very important, try to get a perfect 3D looking picture and than use shadows to raise the shadow detail to 50% or higher and the depth will be gone.
Make the picture darker with levels/curves and the depth will be done due to blacklevel crunch.

Everything about the 3D likeness of a picture can be explained, the problem is:
Find the perfect lens, the perfect light and the perfect camera

I have found that my 85mm 1.8 Canon, 135mm f2.0L and 70-200 f2.8L IS in the studio give me the most depth (3D look) in a picture.
Aperture varies from f2.8 to f16 and has no real impact on the roundness of the shot, although big apertures (low numbers) will give you more sense of depth by the DOF. Longer lenses will compress the picture taking away alot of the roundness, a portret on 200mm has less depth/3D look than one on 135mm or 85 (which on the 5D seems to be somewhat of the sweetspot for great 3D looks).

Hope this helps a bit

Greetings,
Frank

May 29, 2007 at 04:42 PM

jshelly
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p.16 #5 · Where does the 3D look come from?

Frank,

What an fantastic explanation! You've offered answers with examples.

Can't thank you enough - very nice

May 29, 2007 at 05:24 PM

cogitech
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p.16 #6 · Where does the 3D look come from?

J.A.F. Doorhof wrote:
Normal television is between 550-720x480 for DVD 720x480.

Correction: Standard NTSC broadcast quality = 352x240 (480i). This is what most people know as "regular TV."

Most standard definiftion TVs are capable of higher resolutions to display DVD (720x480i) or "digital cable" (typically 480x480i)

May 29, 2007 at 05:34 PM

J.A.F. Doorhof
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p.16 #7 · Where does the 3D look come from?

To make the story complete,

The 480 lines are a standard the horizontal resolution can change per source.
The 480 lines are interlaced so there are 240 on the screen EVERY field (2 fields for every frame), but the resolution should read 480.
Actually it's 525 but only 480 are visable.

The horizontal resolution for DVD is max 720.
For digital broadcasts arround 640-720 depending on the source and bandwidth.

This is the most used table by the way:

ANALOGUE broadcast NTSC 270x486
Laserdisch 460x480
Betamax arround 250 and 285 for superbeta (they were ahead of their time

)
VHS 240x480
SVHS 400x480
SDTV digital video broadcasts 640-704

In Europe we don't have analogue broadcasts anymore for many years, it's all cable or digital, so I calculated for SDTV sorry

But we are getting off topic

May 29, 2007 at 09:32 PM

woodyspedden
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p.16 #8 · Where does the 3D look come from?

DrPablo wrote:
cogitech wrote:
BTW, bokeh does have something to do with it. Just watch "Lost" and you'll see. (I bet they are using Zeiss).

They might be using Cooke. I don't know squat about movie camera lenses, but Cooke makes lenses for both movie cameras and for large format cameras -- and their LF lenses are astounding.

Zeiss dominates the movie industry and their lenses for these applications often exceed $50,000 each. HDTV is a must for today's television technology. Now if they could only get some content worth watching. And our HDTV technology is now 1080i at best. I believe this gives 1920 by 1080 pixels of resolution.

Woody

May 29, 2007 at 10:53 PM

DrPablo
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p.16 #9 · Where does the 3D look come from?

Zeiss hasn't made LF lenses for a long time, and as far as I know Leica never has. There are a couple antique Zeiss LF lenses out there, but it's really not a name in LF. Schneider and Rodenstock are the German lensmakers for LF whose names are breathed with the same reverence as Zeiss and Leica. Nikon and Fuji are also among the elites of LF. I wonder why Leica stuck to microscopes and small format cameras and didn't venture any larger.

May 29, 2007 at 11:33 PM

DrPablo
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p.16 #10 · Where does the 3D look come from?

I couldn't help but go out today and try to create a 3D image, with this thread in mind.

This is a large format image on 8x10 inch Ilford HP5+ sheet film, shot with a Schneider 300mm Symmar and a wratten #47 blue filter, developed in PMK-Pyro. I scanned the negative through a glassine sleeve, so it's suboptimal, but it'll do.

This image is copyrighted by the owner

May 30, 2007 at 03:49 AM

brainiac
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p.16 #11 · Where does the 3D look come from?

Lovely shot - plenty of 3D effect. I must say though that I find tilted planes of focus quite unnatural - I think it actually detracts from a sense of reality, perhaps because eyes don't work like that.

May 30, 2007 at 07:09 AM

pere marti
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p.16 #12 · Where does the 3D look come from?

The base, and even the near ground, catches atention and has 3D. But It detracts from the main subject, the angel, wich has no 3D, and gives the sensation that something is lacking. Perhaps color would have aided. I don't know.

May 30, 2007 at 09:11 AM

brainiac
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p.16 #13 · Where does the 3D look come from?

Notice how the pillar, which is perspectivally behind the tree is nevertheless less blurred, because the lens is closer to film on that side. The overall effect is unsettling for me - my subliminal eye knows something isn't quite right. I think I would prefer a small enough aperture to keep the gravestone mostly in focus, and a more orthogonal rendition.

May 30, 2007 at 09:35 AM

brainiac
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p.16 #14 · Where does the 3D look come from?

Reminds me of a shot I did where I wanted more depth of field on the foreground, but no more on the background. I shot a sequence while moving focus through the subject and then layered them on top of each other in photoshop and painted in detail from the various frames as required:

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here's the full rez version: http://cyberphotographer.com/5D/iguana_comp.jpg

I've used this technique a couple of times to increase DoF where needed and make up for lack of tilt in the lens mount.

May 30, 2007 at 09:49 AM

carstenw
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p.16 #15 · Where does the 3D look come from?

Interesting technique, Richard. Do you paint in the focus manually, in areas which you judge to be at certain distances, or is there some way to do it more automatically?

May 30, 2007 at 10:11 AM

brainiac
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p.16 #16 · Where does the 3D look come from?

I paint it in by hand. Just line up all the layers as best you can at 50% transparency, option click the layer mask icon in the layers pallet for each layer to get a black layer mask, and then pick your layers and paint in what you want on top of the best layer. The x key flips between black and white paint so you can do/undo in a non-linear way. I didn't spend too much time on it, so if you look close at the full rez image you can find places where the blend is visible, but I have printed it to 30x40 inches and nobody noticed. At that size he kind of dominates the room ;)

May 30, 2007 at 10:58 AM

Anden
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p.16 #17 · Where does the 3D look come from?

rico wrote:
woodyspedden wrote:
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

Woody,

Thanks for submitting your fine work to such a critical audience.

Based on comments in this thread (particularly brainiac and Son), I interpreted the scene to accentuate 3-D qualities. I will, of course, remove the image on request...

In capturing the scene directly, I would use a wide aperture, and select a time of day when the canyon was in darkness and the ledge in oblique light.

I think the texture of the clip really pops out and it has an amazing 3D feeling. I didn´t see this at first but after looking a while it really pops.

A

May 30, 2007 at 11:13 AM

DrPablo
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p.16 #18 · Where does the 3D look come from?

My shot as you've picked up on is a quintessential view camera shot. I used Scheimpflug focusing principles using lens swing to have a sharp plane of focus along the facade of the gravestone.

pere marti wrote:
It detracts from the main subject, the angel, wich has no 3D, and gives the sensation that something is lacking.

This is mainly because I got hasty and showed you a scanned negative instead of a print.

The angel on top actually is just as textured and detailed as the rest, and perhaps more so, because it has both texture and shape. You can see it better on this crop from the negative scan. I needed to adjust levels after scanning the negative to evoke the scene contrast and that wipes out some highlight detail. But on the negative there is a ton of detail even in the brightest highlights, and this will print very easily, especially if I do a lith print. Once I make a contact print I'll scan it in. Again, the Scheimpflug focus effect is visible -- but it was either that or stop down more, which would have made the background sharper than I wanted.

By the way, those are two spiderwebs between the angel's head and wing. You can see it with the naked eye on the negative -- pretty cool.

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May 30, 2007 at 02:18 PM

pere marti
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p.16 #19 · Where does the 3D look come from?

DrPablo, I like this crop by itself a lot more than the full image. It is evocative and strong, accentuated by the (excessive?) contrast and specially the harsh lighting. Although not a good exemple of 3D: the shadows hardly draw the volume and the moss is spread everywhere so it is more difficult to identify surfaces.

Richard, that iguana wows.

May 30, 2007 at 06:59 PM

Andi Dietrich
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p.16 #20 · Where does the 3D look come from?

here two 4x5 shots I posted some time back in the image thread

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my guess is that scanning throws away some amount of the 3D look of large film photos?
any comments?

May 30, 2007 at 07:26 PM

DrPablo
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p.16 #21 · Where does the 3D look come from?

Absolutely -- unless you're drum scanning, prints are a much more effective way of getting highlight and shadow detail.

May 30, 2007 at 07:52 PM

Alex
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p.16 #22 · Where does the 3D look come from?

carstenw wrote:
Interesting technique, Richard. Do you paint in the focus manually, in areas which you judge to be at certain distances, or is there some way to do it more automatically?

There are a few programs that do this. One example is here http://www.flickr.com/groups/macroviewers/discuss/163367/ . People on the macro forum will know them better.

Alex

May 30, 2007 at 09:18 PM

pdmphoto
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p.16 #23 · Where does the 3D look come from?

I posted this on the alternative image thread, where it was recommended I post it here as well. It's an example of the 3D look with the entire frame in focus. Nikon 28/4 shift+polarizer+2stop grad ND filter. Kodal SLR/c at ISO6 15sec f/16. One reason I like the Nikon 28/4 is for it's "look", which shows strongly here. For stopped down landscapes, I think the 3D look has to do with textures, contrast, and microcontrast.

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May 31, 2007 at 10:22 PM

brainiac
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p.16 #24 · Where does the 3D look come from?

Awesome shot. The 3D really transports you there.

Jun 01, 2007 at 10:21 AM

woodyspedden
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p.16 #25 · Where does the 3D look come from?

pdmphoto wrote:
I posted this on the alternative image thread, where it was recommended I post it here as well. It's an example of the 3D look with the entire frame in focus. Nikon 28/4 shift+polarizer+2stop grad ND filter. Kodal SLR/c at ISO6 15sec f/16. One reason I like the Nikon 28/4 is for it's "look", which shows strongly here. For stopped down landscapes, I think the 3D look has to do with textures, contrast, and microcontrast.

This image is copyrighted by the owner

I don't disagree with your comments at all. This is an outstanding example of what is trying to be demonstrated here with regard to 3D. I think the most compelling issue is that none of us have been able to articulate what causes the 3D effect. But when you see it, you know it is there

Woody

Jun 02, 2007 at 02:57 AM


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