How to take 3D photos
A couple of weeks ago, I wrote a tutorial on how to see cross-eye 3D stereo photos on your computer screen. Today I’m going to tell you how to take your own 3D photos.
The process is really very simple, and the basics can be explained in less than a minute, but to become good at taking and presenting 3D photos take a bit more time, and it’s something that really develops with practice. I hope you’ll take what you learn here and get out and get lots of practice taking 3D photos.
The typical and easiest single-camera 3D photography technique is commonly called the “cha-cha” technique, for reasons which will soon become obvious. Here’s the technique in a nutshell:
Taking the Photos
- Always take photos in portrait orientation
- Set the camera to full manual and choose the correct exposure and focus
- Put your feet square on to the subject of your 3d photo
- Put your weight onto your right foot, without lifting your left
- Take the first photo
- Put your weight onto your left foot without raising your right
- Unless your subject is very close, you don’t need to turn your camera to keep it in the centre
- Take the second photo
And you’re done! As simple as that. Simply by shifting your weight from one foot to the other, you move your viewpoint by several centimetres, sufficient to get a 3D effect. The “cha-cha” name refers to the side to side sway you do when taking the photo.
Processing
StereoPhoto Maker screenshot
Now you’ve got two photos, but you need to make one. I use a fantastic piece of free software called StereoPhoto Maker. It’s not the prettiest software, but it does a fantastic job. It can be used in conjunction with a plugin called AutoPano, that can analise the two images and automatically correct for many of the problems that can come from shooting two separate images. This includes tilting and twisting, moving forward or back between shots, and the “keystone distortion” that occurs when you turn the camera to centre the subject for close 3D photos.
- Download and install StereoPhoto Maker.
- Download and install AutoPano and link it to StereoPhoto Maker as a plugin.
Step by step
- Drag both photos onto the StereoPhoto Maker shortcut icon
- Zoom out a bit with your mouse’s scroll wheel if you need to to make it easier to fuse the pair into 3D with the cross-eye technique
- If the 3D effect seems reversed, click the swap button to swap the images correctly for a crossed eye view
- Click on the auto align button to use autopano to correct for any distortions
- Click on the Easy Adjustment button to fix the 3D images position relative to the 3D window (see below for more information)
- I find adding a border helps, so if you like, in the menu go to View – Border Options
- Check “Show Border” and adjust the border settings to your liking
- Save the image by clicking in the menu File – Save Stereo Image
- Enjoy your new 3d photo!
The 3D “Window”
The edge of the image is more than just the boundaries of the 3D photograph. In a 3D photo, it is also a “hole” into which you look and through which 3D subjects can appear. A good way to think of the edge of the image is as a literal window in your computer screen. This is one of the reasons why I find a border around both parts of the 3D image helps me, it more clearly defines the edge of the 3D window.
Just like a real window, you expect to look through it, and rarely do you expect things seen beyond it to come back through it at you. One nasty optical illusion that can happen with 3D photos is when part of the 3D subject “touches” the window, or worse, appears to overlap it. Have a look at the two examples below:
 The subject is placed too far forward in the 3D window, and appears to overlap the window’s edge, creating an uncomfortable optical illusion. This is most obvious on the left of this stereo photo. |
 Here the photo has been corrected, pushing the 3D subject back in 3D space beyond the window frame. |
StereoPhoto Maker easy adjustment
This problem is easily corrected in SteroPhoto Maker with the “Easy Adjustment” button. Clicking on this will show both images overlapped and tinted red and blue (if you have an pair of red/blue 3d glasses, you can do this process in 3D!). Using the slider above the image, you can adjust the separation of the two images, thus moving them backward and forward in 3D space.
It can be tricky to get the hang of how changing this slider will affect the final image, but as a tip, look at the bottom edge. Move the slider so that the red and blue images exactly overlap where they touch the bottom edge, that means that part of the image will appear at the same distance as the frame. This tip will only work, obviously, if part of the subject touches the bottom of the photo. With some practice you’ll get the hang of it.
A rule of thumb is that it’s ok for part of the image to protrude through the frame, as long as no part is “touching” it.
How to View
Now that you’ve got a whole bunch of awesome 3D photos, it’s time to share them around. Hopefully you’ve already read my tutorial on how to view cross-eye 3D photos on your computer screen, but if not, you can read it here.
If you’d like to share your new 3D masterpieces, and I encourage you to do so, there’s a Stereophotography Flickr group, and one on Yahoo too. I’d love you to put links to your 3D photos in the comments to this post, so I can see how you’ve done! I’m relatively new to 3D photography, so I’m sure there’s much you can teach me too!
This is a quick and easy method for 3D photography and has a number of advantages and disadvantages:
Advantages
- You don’t need expensive specialist 3D equipment
- Each eye’s image is captured on a full frame, so the resulting 3D image can be very high resolution
- There is no blurring or ghosting at the edge of the frame, which can be seen in many “beam splitter” attachments where the two views join
- You can take a 3D photo with any lens in your SLR kit, including macro, for extremely close 3D photos
- Many 3D attachments have very limited control over focus and aperture, with the cha-cha technique you have complete control over the settings
- You can do this with any camera, if you forget to take your 3D attachment or camera, you can still take 3D photos this way
Disadvantages
- The most obvious and critical shortcoming is that this method only works with still object that don’t move between shots
- Any movement between the two shots will cause a distracting 3D error, so people, animals and even trees in a light breeze will be difficult or impossible to shoot
- You need to take two photos for every 3D image, which takes twice as long, and uses twice as much space
- It is easy to introduce errors such as twisting or tilting the camera between shots which can cause distracting artifacts
- You need to shoot with manual settings so that there’s no accidental variation in exposure or focus
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[...] How to take 3D photos Neil Creek If you are wondering what a 3D picture is then you have to read this article [...]
Thanks! I just found your website – what a cool writeup. I’ve seen 3D photos on flickr, and my dad even has an old stereoscopic camera, but I’ve never tried myself. I’ll be giving this a try.
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My Friend, Having spent over an hour wandering in your generous pages of offerings and still lost of breath and speech, I’ve taken the privilege of making you a contact in flickr, that I might not miss this wonderful creative journey your on. and would very much like to involve my mind an slow growing talent in your teachings as well. for now I’ll just say thank-you ever so much. Jamas
P.S. The Photos of you and family speak volumes, You have a real Gem in Naomi, my prayers for a speedy recovery of such a remarkable surgery.
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Tammie – I hope you had success learning the technique!
Jamas, thank you so much for your incredibly generous comment! I’m genuinely moved by your words – you made my day! I hope you continue to enjoy my blog and learn more about photography from my writing. All the best!
In your instrutions you say
“Unless your subject is very close, you don’t need to turn your camera to keep it in the centre ”
You should never turn the camera especially if the subject is close it will cause parallax problems you should only shift horizontally, if subjects are close the shift should be less the simple rule of thumb is to shift 1/30th of the distance to the nearest object in your stereo pair.
Craig
Do you know of similar programs that will work on a mac?
Craig: I have heard as much said before. I’m not an expert in the minutia of 3D photography yet, however I’ve tried several shots with turning the camera for close subjects and they’ve worked out well enough. Rather than parallax (which I thought was the necessary effect to achieve pseudo 3D), I’ve heard the problem resulting from turning the camera called “keystone” distortion. I understand that using the AutoPano plugin for SPM can correct for this distortion. The 30:1 rule is, as you say, a rule of thumb. Some stereographers like to exaggerate the 3D depth, especially on close-up subjects, so turning the camera and correcting for keystone distortion may be a viable tactic. I am happy to be corrected though if I have misunderstood anything.
Renata: Stereo Photo Maker can run on Mac via emulation. The instructions can be found on the SPM site. I’m not aware of an equivalent piece of software for the Mac otherwise. Does anyone else have a suggestion?
Neil
You are right I should have said “keystone” and there has been a lot of discussion recently about the autopano correcting for the distortion and if its correction is sufficient so it is probably a subjective thing and up to the individual as to whether or not it is good enough and photography is an art not a science.
The 1/30th rule is a good starting point, personally I think the best way is to shift several times.
Take the first image then move a little less than you think take an image move again where you think you should be take an image then move a little extra and take the last image 4 images total then pick the pair that gives the best depth. If the spacing is too hyper it can be difficult to view. For me Hyper stereo views are easier to cross view anaglyphs can be very difficult but cross view is my favorite viewing method.
There is a MAC program called AnaBuilder at http://tinyurl.com/4obleu StereoPhoto Maker is a much better program in my opinion but if you have a MAC it is a good program and it is free.
Actually the best rule of thumb is “you can NEVER take too many pictures”
Craig
@Craig: Great, thanks, I’ve downloaded anabuilder and will work through the tutorials. I wanted to avoid installing Windows on my already crowded machine. Thanks again!
Craig: That’s an excellent rule of thumb that applies to all aspects of photography. Thanks also for helping out Renata with Mac 3D software!
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Anyone really interested in 3D photography should check out StereoData Maker it is for a number of different Canon Powershot cameras if you have 2 cameras you can sync them to do action 3D photos and all you need is a battery and a switch or with 1 cameras it has out line mode wich puts an outline on parts of your first image so you can line up the second for a perfect shot and best of all it is FREE.
Check out
http://stereo.jpn.org/eng/sdm/index.htm
BTW you can check out a couple of 3D photos I did with a pair of Canon A570is cameras on my flickr page
http://www.flickr.com/photos/26349005@N02/2527364482/
Craig
[...] http://neil.creek.name/blog/2008/03/21/how-to-take-3d-photos/ [...]
I wonder if the tools mentioned could be used for creating dual-exposure landscape prints from handheld shots…
I regularly take 2 shots when shooting landscapes, one to expose the sky, another to expose the land, then photoshop them together. It’s more versatile than using a ND Grad.
Here’s an example, taken using a tripod of course:
http://flickr.com/photos/cascadehush/2434633043/
But there have been times when I have not been able to use a tripod. To take 2 shots hand held means not getting exactly the same composition, so then you have the problem of lining everything up. But if this software can line up a stereo pair, maybe it can line up 2 shots that just happen to be different exposures. Then I can proceed as usual, with everything properly superimposed.
Just a though. Feedback would be appreciated.
@CascadeHush Your thinking is definately on the right track. The Autopano plugin which takes care of the alignment of the two images is based on the open source Panorama Tools (I believe).
However, for the purpose which you describe, I think PTGui would be better suited to your need. It’s a front end for Panorama Tools, geared towards stitching panoramas (possibly a useful tool for you for landscapes anyway). It can automatically analyse and align multiple exposures, and them export them as layered photoshop files, even in 16bit format.
The pro version of the software (a little more expensive) even has a built in tone-mapper for generating HDR images from bracketed exposures.
I hope you’ll try the software and find it useful! Good luck.
This is true cool and very easy!
Download and install AutoPano and link it to StereoPhoto Maker as a plugin. What the hell are you on about its a load of gobledigooch.
‘Autopano folder’
Autopano or Autopano-SIFT is the program used to extract key features from images that SPM uses for correction of errors and mounting to window.
Browse to its location and enter the path here.
If no path is entered, ‘autopano.exe’ will be searched-for in the SPM folder and used if found.
‘Hide Autopano window’
You may hide or display the DOS (Autopano) window during auto-correction.
‘Input image arrangement’
SPM needs to know this for the auto-correction process.
SPM does not assume that JPS images are in cross-eyed format.
‘Window mounting options’
When SPM auto-aligns images, the following mounting options are available :-
How the hell do you link Download and install AutoPano and link it to StereoPhoto Maker as a plugin.
If you are going to write something on the web make it understandable youve wasted 2 friggen hours of mine trying to link autopan with goddamn sterephoto maker now im crosseyed for life.
I need to see 3D pictures with glasses. I have this and already made the pictures following your tutorial, but I need to see without cross the eyes, it is possible.
When I use easy adjusment I have an amazing efect, but it´s lost in few seconds and is necessary to cross the eyes. My work is for presentate in a big forum to show anatomic pictures of the brain.
Can you help me please.
@Sebastian If you are unable to use a free-viewing technique (crossing eyes, or parallel viewing) then the only way you are going to be able to see pseudo-3D, like these images, is with some kind of hardware assistance.
This could be red/blue glasses (anaglyph 3d), a 3D monitor, LCD flicker glasses, or polarised dual projector screens.
I have the red/blue glasses but I get the effect only for a few seconds and I need to cross my eyes even with the glasses.
Do I need another program? if so which one would you recomend.
The images above will not be seen as 3D with anaglyph glasses only. Glasses will not contribute to the 3D effect at all. To see the images as 3D without crossing your eyes, using the anaglyph technique, you need to prepare the images in a different way. The technique is too involved to describe in a comment to this post. I recommend you visit one of the 3D photography groups mentioned in the article, either on Flickr or Yahoo. Members of those groups should be able to andswer your questions. Good luck!
Thanks Neil, I will do it.
Just found your site. I have worked in stereo for a long time – single SLR, synchronized double SLR, and Nimslo/Nishika. Cost and equipment bulk have forced me to leave film behind and I hope to get into digital stereo. I obviously need to figure out how to sync a pair of digitals. Also need to get a digitizer for all my Kodachrome. Any thoughts?
A single camera niche you did not mention is photography from a plane. Just shoot a sequence of the same view and let the plane do the left – right. Hyperstereo is cool, too; spread out the cameras and shrink the scene. I am always surprised how many people commend my model making for stereo shots of the Grand Canyon. No, its the real thing, folks.
I look forward to more digital stereo.
Cheers, Rich
The best way to sync a pair of cameras is to go with Canon cameras and StereoData Maker I just put together a pair of G9′s and they will sync t within 1/20000 of a second.
Check out the SDM yahoo group at:
http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/StereoDataMaker/
[...] What follows is a selection of 3D stereo images taken around Kinglake using the “cha-cha” method. If you are unfamiliar with the technique to see 3D images of this kind, then please read this tutorial first, before returning here. If you would like to learn how to take 3D photos yourself, then you can learn how with this tutorial. [...]
bonjour,
je me suis permis d’utiliser une de vos photos dans le cadre d’un mini tutoriel sur un forum, j’espere que ca ne vous gene pas, auquel cas je la supprimerai immediatement
la sorce est indiquée en bas du post.
http://forum.hardware.fr/hfr/Hardware/2D-3D/stereoscopie-dimension-sujet_813999_16.htm#t6934429
cordialement, Manu (nac76)
eurr, maybe in english it’s better LOL
greetings,
I toke the liberty of using 1 of your pics to illustrate a forum, I hope it’s no probleme for you but of course I’ll take it off if you want.
http://forum.hardware.fr/hfr/Hardware/2D-3D/stereoscopie-dimension-sujet_813999_16.htm#t6934429
sorry about my bad english (and the post in french)
cordially, Manu
How can you capture 3D pics of moving objects: such as people jumping and alike?
Jo, you need to either use a splitter lens (like I did) which uses prisms and/or mirrors to take two images from slightly different positions and combine them in the one frame. The Loreo 3D Lens in a Cap is an example of this.
The alternative is to trigger two identical cameras mounted together at the same time.
Many thanks Neil!! Interesting… I’ll have a look at those lens. BTW, nice tutorial and pics. Thanks for sharing!!!
You’re welcome, I’m glad you liked them!
Jo
The best way is with a pair of cameras then you can vary the stereo base according to what you are shooting. StereoData Maker is the best most reliable way of doing this.
You can get SDM here:
http://stereo.jpn.org/eng/sdm/index.htm
Check out:
http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/StereoDataMaker/
I have a pair of Canon G9 cameras that will sync to within 1/20,000 of a second and I build a controller that sync’s external flash to any of the SDM cameras as well as synced zoom
BTW all you need to sync SDM cameras is a battery and a switch, very simple
Thank you for letting me know. You are welcome to use my images provided you give a credit and a link to the source. You have done both, so your use is perfectly acceptable! Thank you :)
Wow, this is so easy, and so much fun! Thank you for a very easy-to-understand guide!
[...] I saw this post and was crossing my eyes back and forth until I finally saw them in 3D! I’m going to try this technique tonight at the fashion photoshoot. Here’s the entire post: http://www.neilcreek.com/blog/2008/03/21/how-to-take-3d-photos/ [...]
[...] only just found out about cross-eyed 3D photos. I got a headache soon [...]
[...] effect – try out the tutorial on how to see 3D photos here. Want to take photos like these? Head on here! [...]
[...] viewpoint between them) and a piece of software called StereoPhoto Maker and the instructions here: http://www.neilcreek.com/blog/2008/03/21/how-to-take-3d-photos/. My technique needs work and the results are a bit spotty but I’ll work on [...]
Thank you for this, Neil. When I have a bit more time to ‘have a play’, I think I’ll give this a try.
Hi Neil,
First can i say what fantastic pictures you take; people like you inspire me in my photography and that excites me. Ever since i went to a 3D photography studio in Portland USA last year, i’ve wanted to try stereo photography and thanks to your tips, i now have! I just tried taking some photos without the PC software and to be fair, they were pretty darn good just on the screen, i was so chuffed and now i can’t wait to try the technique out and get some practice it! Thank you so much Neil for introducing me to this fantastic art form.
Kind regards,
Neil.
You can also use Start 3D (http://www.start3d.com) to automatically create, view and share 3D photos online.
It’s also worth noting that Fuji launched the world’s first consumer 3D digital camera, the FinePix REAL 3D W1, in October 2009 that allows you to capture two shots simultaneously and so make amazing action shots.
Combining the Fuji camera and Start 3D makes the whole process of taking and sharing 3D photos online as easy as it is for 2D photos.
[...] http://www.neilcreek.com/blog/2008/03/21/how-to-take-3d-photos/ [...]
@Nellie Thank you for your kind words! I hope you continue to enjoy exploring 3D photography. I would love you to share links to some of your photos!
@Charles Very intersting concept for the site. I only had time for a brief look, but I’ll definitely come back for a closer look in the future. The Fuji 3D camera certainly has caught my interest, especially with the supposed 3D display on the back. I’m sure it, or a future variation will end up in my hands one day :)
[...] I learned it from here: http://www.neilcreek.com/blog/2008/03/21/how-to-take-3d-photos/ [...]
Can you not just duplicate the photo rather than taking two images?
No you need two different photos to represent the two images you get from your eyes. If you look at something and keep your left eye open and close your right eye then open your right eye and close your left eye you will notice there is a differance between what you see with each eye your brain gives you stereo vision from those two images.
Wow Neil! Thank you for this tutorial. It was all I needed to start taking great 3D images!
Hi, is it possible for me to alter photos and pictures that I already own and make them look 3D ? I would really like to do this for a project
Yes it is possible to convert a single photo into a 3D photo Brian Wallace wrote a tutorial on using StereoPhoto Maker to convert 2D to 3D the document is in the files section of the
http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/3D-StereoviewXchange/
Great technique. For the first time I was able to see a still photograph in 3D. Infact, the girl’s photo pointing her finger was the first pic I saw in 3D (using your cross eye technique) :D I owe you a beer for an awesome experience.
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