A 3D effect in the image or just my imagination ?

[alexz]

I realize all the talk of 3D image appearance is kind of beating a dead horse, lots has been said in this regard in various nline discussions, in particular in Leica-related ones.
Frankly, shooting Leica with noted lenses I didnt' care much of that, neither looked specifically, however that attached image I scanned today just struck me by the obvious depth in it, somethign that leads to a 3D perception of regular 2D image.
Is that just my imagination of other people (you) also see it that way ?
Perhaps to be attributed to a specific angle of view/lighting rather then optical quality of Leica 50mm/2 'Cron (or was it 35mm ASPH 'Cron, don't remember) ?

Putting aside an exposure consideration (bearing in mind there is quite an extreme contrast situation there), do you see there that 3D effect there ?

[NickTrop]

I attribute 3D to the gradual blurring of the background at wider apertures with (subjectively) the subject - say, 3 to 9 feet in front of the lens. Usually this is aided by an object - a rail, bench - something, that coincides along the z axis between the camera and the subject.

In this picture - a nice one btw, I would say the 3D effect is achieved not by the usual factors (microcontrast, gradiated OOF, shallow - but not too shallow, DOF) but rather by the strong geometric patterns of the bricks in the ground that coincide with the perspective. That doesn't take anything away from the pic.

Fast 50mms, by the way, are the best lenses for 3D effect. More by the way of how they're typically used - natural light, wider apertures, subject close but not too close, with enough of the background "provide" for a 3D effect as opposed to a WA typically used for landscapes at small apertures and long DOF - everything in sharp focus, or portrait lenses that don't leave enough background...as much as anything. The three standouts I own are the Leica Summar, the Asai M42 50/1.4 Super Tak, and the 1.4 on the Lynx.

[zuikologist]

Nick, I think you have it right. The brickwork pattern provides the 3D effect, especially around the boy's head. I agree also - nice photo.

[alexz]

Thanks guys, looking at the image once again I tend to agree that the brickwork pattern along with that particular perspective added that look...
Well, something to learn from...

[Trius]

I think the lighting has a lot to do with it, too, but the geometric patterns of the brick are the dominant contributing element.

It's a very nice shot.

[ywenz]

I think it's a case of pareidolia. The human mind is very easily convinced. If you didn't tell me that the image looked 3D then it would not be to me.

[kevin m]

"3D" is a trick. Any image is 2D, it's only some combination of lighting and composition that leads the eye to think otherwise. Pretty neat trick when it happens, though!

[clarence]

Does anyone remember that scene in Blade Runner when Deckard examines the photograph?

Clarence

[Pherdinand]

http://www.rangefinderforum.com/forums/attachment.php?attachmentid=50529&d=1191878940

[NickTrop]

Pherdinand - yes, very, very 3D-y :) The lady in red looks like she's about to hop off the monitor on to my keyboard.

[vrgard]

Pherdinand's is definitely more dramatic than mine but here's a recent shot that I thought had a bit of that 3D quality to it.

-Randy

[NickTrop]

Here's a rare (for me) scan from a print where I was trying to "go for" the 3D effect (it's usually a happy accident). Tree blurred out in foreground, fence positioned along the "Z" access. Was using a Leica Summar, which has a reputation of being a 3D-Y lens (and a little soft). Usually (at least with me) 3D-Y-ness is a "happy accident" :)

[jlw]

I guess I don't see what I'd consider a "3D" effect in any of these examples, but it's worth noting that the size and distance at which you view the image makes a big difference.

I won't go into the whole development here, but briefly, Kingslake (in his book Lenses in Photography) notes that any photograph will have a "center of perspective" that determines the relative sizes of objects in it.

He suggests imagining it this way: Suppose you're viewing a scene containing near and far objects. You want to sketch this scene in a realistic perspective -- so you close one eye, hold up a sheet of glass at arm's length, and, with your other hand, sketch the outlines of the objects with a grease pencil.

Obviously the sketch will reproduce the perspective of the scene as your eye saw it. And when you view the sketch later, it still will reproduce that perspective -- provided you view it from the same distance that you sketched it in the first place.

Extending this idea, Kingslake posited that a photograph printed at a size and viewed at a distance that puts the eye at the original center of perspective will look more realistic, and will have more of a "three-dimensional" appearance, than one that isn't viewed from its center of perspective.

Note that this doesn't lock you into any particular size and viewing distance; you can get realistic perspective with a smaller print by viewing it from a closer distance, and from a larger print by viewing it from a farther distance. Either way, the goal is to size and position the print so that the eye covers (subtends) the same angle when viewing an object's image in the print as the eye covered when viewing the original object from the original vantage point.

I suspect that a lot of the effects noted here were caused by the photographer happened to fall into a size/viewing distance combination that came close to reproducing the original perspective, giving the image a more naturally-proportioned appearance that the brain interprets as "three-dimensional."

Those who made it through the above without their eyes glazing over may now pin on their Perspective Pedantry merit badges...

[vrgard]

Okay, jlw, I'm now proudly wearing my Perspective Pedantry merit badge. ;) And I think I understand what you're saying (basically, that maintaining proper perspective plus perceived life-sized imaging yields a more real or three dimensional imaging sense). But seriously, I think there's something more going on in these shots. Not discounting the benefits and realities of relative life-size imaging while maintaining proper perspective in a scene, whether drawn or via photographic print, but the three-dimensionality that I see in some of these images goes beyond that. For example, in Pherdinand's shot it's almost as if the woman in the red coat is a separate image that has been added to the rest of the image. The sense of physical space between the woman and the rest of the image just seems to go beyond the benefits provided by proper perspective. While maybe less so, I see the same sort of effect in the image I posted where the woman on the left just seems to have more physical separation from the background fence and the woman on the right of the image that mere perspective should provide. Likewise with NickTrop's picture where the sense of physical separation between the boy and the tree in the foreground and fence in the background also seems more three dimensional than one would expect from maintaining perspective. Now none of this is my area of expertise but those are my thoughts/reactions to your posting.

-Randy

[Pherdinand]

Pherdinand - yes, very, very 3D-y :) The lady in red looks like she's about to hop off the monitor on to my keyboard.

yes. Well the lady in red after some time hopped off my monitor and went to Englad and got married and told me to remove her photos from the rff gallery.
Well this ain't the gallery so..;)

In print it even looks more 3d. Looks like she was cut out form another shot and put there on top.

But i just wanted to illustrate that the 3d look can result from different situations. Indeed the example posted by the thread starter is showing strong geometric patterns and everything is sharp, and that's what gives the effect,while mine simply uses the fact that there is no smooth transition between the sharp foreground and soft background subjects. Also the colours matter a lot - the bright red in the foreground vs the dull gray-brown background.

[Pherdinand]

vrgard's image has the same characteristics as mine, and nicktrop's example is using, maybe, both effects - the fence leading out of the frame and a bit of the soft/sharp abrupt transition.

By the way, you don't need miracle lenses for such effects. Mine was shot with a 3-element novar anastigmat on a 50 y old super ikonta - a lens that was used to equip the cheaper versions of folders... cost me a grand total of 20 euro plus shipping...

[Pherdinand]

jlw's argumentation is more valid, i think, for the case of viewing wide angle shots, or ultrawides... If you get really close to a large print that was made with the weird perspective of an ultrawide lens, everything will fall into its place and the scene will look very real, like you are in the middle of it. If you view the same print from far, i.e. "normal viewing distance", it will just look ultrawide, which might work for the scene or might not work.
I am not sure thoguh if you can apply the same for that so-called 3d effect. It certainly matters how you view the image, but i don't think it matters to get into the original viewer-vs-scene-geometry that was present at the moment of exposure.

[Patman]

I've always achievef 3D effects with long lenses, when i say always i don.t mean on demand but accidentally. Here is a shot of some weeds at the waters edge, i think this really has a 3d effect.

[cme4brain]

I realize all the talk of 3D image appearance is kind of beating a dead horse, lots has been said in this regard in various nline discussions, in particular in Leica-related ones.
Frankly, shooting Leica with noted lenses I didnt' care much of that, neither looked specifically, however that attached image I scanned today just struck me by the obvious depth in it, somethign that leads to a 3D perception of regular 2D image.
Is that just my imagination of other people (you) also see it that way ?
Perhaps to be attributed to a specific angle of view/lighting rather then optical quality of Leica 50mm/2 'Cron (or was it 35mm ASPH 'Cron, don't remember) ?

Putting aside an exposure consideration (bearing in mind there is quite an extreme contrast situation there), do you see there that 3D effect there ?

I find it (3D effecdt) easier to pseudo-achieve when the subject is separated from an OOF background, or by a change in subject/background lighting level. Here is an example.

[jlw]

I think what we're demonstrating by this (and it's a useful demonstration) is that the idea of "simulating 3D" means different things to different people.

-- For some it (at least partially) means a strong sense of texture, which can be produced by contrasty lighting and correct exposure. The original image in the thread had strong textures in the tile background, and this helped enhance its sense of dimensionality.

-- For some it means a strong separation between a foreground subject and its background, and there are several ways to achieve this: lighting, such as in the original picture, in which the backlighting creates a rim-light effect; color, such as the young lady's red clothing, which helps her "pop" off the relatively drab background; differential focus, again demonstrated by the young lady in red; and pattern contrast, such as the first picture's two organic shapes against the regular tiled background, and the organic shape of the young lady against the fairly regular patterns of the background buildings.

-- It also can mean a sense of depth created by perspective. My Kingslake treatise showed how correct management of the center of perspective can create an illusion of depth by simulating the perspective that you would see if viewing the original scene. Another way perspective can suggest depth is again demonstrated by the first picture: the regular way that the tile pattern recedes into the background provides the brain with a "depth cue" that tells us we are viewing a scene that has three dimensions.

There may be other ways to analyze this as well. But I think we could safely say that if your goal is to create an image with a strong sense of three-dimensionality, you'd do well to create as many of these elements as possible:

-- Dramatic rendering of textures

-- Strong separation of main subject from background, via lighting, color, and/or differential focus

-- Either a natural or exaggeratedly-deep center of perspective, if you can control size and viewing distance; also, by including perspective elements that provide "depth cues" to the brain by clarifying the differing distances of foreground and background objects.

Incidentally, a terrific way to study many of these techniques in action (literally!) is to watch great old black-and-white movies. Their directors and cinematographers were masters at creating a sense of depth through texture, lighting, and perspective.

Another thing you can do is sort through your own photos, identify ones that seem to have a strong sense of depth, then analyze them to see what you did so you can re-create the effect when desired. All this discussion reminds me that very few of my own photos have much depth effect (I'm usually photographing a flat subject plane against a flat background plane) but it's really something I ought to work on. I did find an older studio photo I did (not with an RF, unfortunately, so I can't put it in my gallery) which I think does illustrate some of these 3D "cues"; let's analyze what some of them are...

http://jlwphoto.net/gallery/thumbs/lrg-18-91-01-10-09.jpg

Juliette had (and still has) a fabulous combination of feminine delicacy and muscularity, which I tried to bring out by lighting her for strong textures: a soft main light about 45 degrees away from the camera, and a hard backlight almost 180 degrees opposite the main light. (You can see the lighting directions from the shadows cast by her foot.) This setup produces a rim-light along her upper arm, torso, and raised thigh that helps separate them from the background. It also creates dramatic contours across her arms and torso that give them a sculptured quality.

Juliette (who is a visual artist as well as a dancer) helped with this by striking a pose in which her upper body is twisted at an angle to her hips; this gives different lighting across the upper and lower parts of her, creating more dynamic shading. I didn't know it at the time, but later learned that this type of pose is called contrapposto (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/contrapposto) and was heavily used by classical and Renaissance sculptors.

Normally you can't get a lot of foreground-vs-background effect when shooting against the bland surface of seamless paper, but in this case I tried a gimmick which I think worked pretty well (and which I probably should have continued developing): I shot a "fan" of light onto the background so it had some tonal variation, creating an illusion of 3D surface. The gimmick consisted simply of a cardboard tube with a plastic Fresnel lens (cheap "page magnifier" you can buy in any drugstore) cut in a circle and taped over one end of the tube; I slipped the tube over the snout of a Minolta 360PX flash unit and played with the spacing and angle until I got a shape that was distinct but not too sharp-edged. Incidentally, the main and fill lights were low-end Novatrons, with the main firing through an umbrella, so no really high-dollar studio gear was involved!

I didn't get any other shots nearly this good that day, but in this one case everything came together to provide (I think) a shot in which a sense of three-dimensional depth and volume works together with the emotional content provided by the contrast between Juliette's serene face and the sense of coiled-spring tension in her upper body.

I guess I really ought to try to do more of that kind of thing...

[NickTrop]

Incidentally, a terrific way to study many of these techniques in action (literally!) is to watch great old black-and-white movies. Their directors and cinematographers were masters at creating a sense of depth through texture, lighting, and perspective.



Yes... started a thread (more general) here on this:
http://www.rangefinderforum.com/forums/showthread.php?t=47477

While what you say is certainly true, a lot of the films from the 30's were using very low speed film, with actors under very hot studio lights... they shot using wider apertures and shallower depth of field less for "aesthetic" reasons. Imagine if your only choices of film speeds were black and white and a 10 ASA and a 25 ASA? Lot more "3D" effect - intentional and (mostly) "otherwise". I'm sure the basics you allude to is not lost on any modern cinematographer. But they have higher speed emulsions at their disposal.

[vrgard]

I haven't had a chance yet to digest all that's been posted since my posting above but based on a very quick read there does seem to be some congruence in our thoughts. What I'm alluding to is that after my previous posting I was thinking more about this subject and realized that I had failed to point out that a likely signficant contributor to this 3D effect, in addition to the possible benefits of proper perspective and possibly even being the prime contributor, is the limited depth of field causing a more stark separation between subject and surrounding/background.

I also wanted to say thank you to the various posters in this thread. It's really nice to be able to have a dialogue about such things without it devolving to an argument.

-Randy

[alexz]

BTW, once torning between 35mm lens choices recently to compliment my 50mm FL between Biogom ZM, 'Cron 35mm v4 and 'Cron ASPH, I finally made up my mind for the latter one while one of the most improtant considerations was the fact of more harsh OOF transition the ASPH provides comparative to the former two, according to what I noticed on numerious examples shot with noted lenses. I noticed a bit sharper transition from in-focus to OOF as provided by ASPH (an any given aperture) contributes greatly to that 3D look - somethign that thrilled me instantly..

[ywenz]

I'll play the fake 3D game..

this one is 3D as hell:

http://farm1.static.flickr.com/33/50084718_99c9a5abd8_o.jpg

[vrgard]

Wow, ywenz, it sure is. Perhaps it's the best example yet of what I was referring to. Namely, that the 3D effect is caused more by depth of field and everything (particularly the background) but the plane of focus being out of focus rather than simply a matter of maintaining proper perspective. In ywenz's shot there's no diminishing line in the Z axis heading off to any point of convergence (hope I got that terminology correct - it's been a while since I studied such things) yet the 3D effect is clearly apparent.

-Randy

P.S. Do I detect a trend here? More "3D" effect with female subjects? Wishful thinking on our parts? ;)

[Finder]

some causes for depth in an image:

Converging lines in linear perspective. Changes in scale are related.
Overlapping - foreground object in front of background object.
Aerial haze - things far away are not as clear. Depth of field is related to this as well.
Color shift from warm to cool - related to aerial haze in that atmosphere scatters longer wavelength easier than shorter ones.

[jlw]

Aerial haze - things far away are not as clear. Depth of field is related to this as well.
Color shift from warm to cool - related to aerial haze in that atmosphere scatters longer wavelength easier than shorter ones.

Hey, yeah, aerial perspective! I forgot to include that one in my previous laundry list of depth-enhancing techniques.

Anybody want to take a crack at producing an image that uses ALL of them?