Perhaps the first stereo SLR-rig for underwateruse, EVER?

[Kimmeineche 0]

With the risk of beeing called something between totally mad and crazy I want to show what I've been experimenting with for the last 12months and dreamed about for more than a decade.....

 

Actually I've been dreaming of doing this since I meet my dear friend Søren Hertz-Christensen in 1997 http://www.sitecenter.dk/sorenhertz .

 

At that time, Søren was using his homebuild/modyfied Nimslo pocket-cam, doing underwaterstereophotography. I remember how impressed I was on this strange thing and words can’t describe the breathtaking feelings I went through when I saw his stunning stereoscopic images on the silverscreen showed and viewed through polarized filters and glasses with a double (homebuild) slideprojektor..... Totally lost in an almost unreachable dream of doing something like Søren, I continued to do normal underwaterphotography with my Nikon F90x. Learned a lot from a lot of other photographers, but the stereoscopic dream still ghosted around in my mind untill I bought a second Nikon D200 camera for backup. Suddently, some day......with two Nikon D200 housings in my hands, the dream could possibly become real... at least above the surface!!!. Googling words like “stereophotography”, “stereoscopic”, etc., for days and nights I found a suitable LANC-controller to syncronize my two D200 cameras with the strobes. A few days after I also bought two 18-70 optics, second hand and before I realized it myself I took my first real steps into stereoscopic photography! Pretty happy myself with the results from my “above surface stereo-rig” I almost lost interest for doing underwaterphotography for several months.

With just a little hope, I did some few experiments underwater with one camera, mounted on a slidebar..... coulden’t almost belive that this seamed to work as well, even it demanded quite good viz.

With a beathing heart I ordered a second Nexus housing with domeport for my second D200 to prove if my dream could stand. With priceless help from another very good friend of mine, I made an underwaterhousing for the LANC-controller. Stealing bulkheads, glands and cables from my old Ikelite F90x housings, and F100 Nexus housing I managed to connect the LANC-controller to the two D200’s in their Nexus-housings and the strobes.

 

Except from the first time I entered the water with my homebuild/modyfied rebreather I can’t remember any time being more excited than the day I left the surface with my underwater stereo-rig (2x16mm Nikon fisheyes behind FP170 domeports) for the first time.

Returning home from the testdive, I was flushed by an incredible feeling when I had the prove on the monitor, right in front of me! Some of the images was mounted in “Photostereomaker” (A free program that means the same for stereophotographers as Photoshop does for other photographers). I feelt so releaved........ YES.....it WORKS, it WORKS!!!!! FINALLY..... 10 years of dreaming had turned into reallity!!!! While I almost can’t wait to visit wrecks in the Northsea, Norway, Croatia, etc.... I was still not able to do stereo-macro-photography underwater.

More nights and days followed by googling and finally I found a suitable beamsplitter for separating the two cameras optics. Mounted with 2x60mm Nikkor Micro AFD2,8 optics I put the cameras into a macro setup. Full of happiness I discovered that this rig is working at least as well as my wideangle setup.

 

You might ask me if it worth it all but after all this I can only say YES, ABSOLUTELY!!!!! I know it’s a very heavy and bulky rig (About 14kg above the surface) but nothing I’ve ever seen in trade can do the same as my rig.....I’ve been dreaming for so long to put the wrecks and underwater wildlife from the dark nordic waters into Stereo/3D and now I fianlly have the tool in my hands!

May be something much smaller and perhaps even better might show up in the trade in the future but the happiness of building and developing something yourself is definately not included then!

 

More to follow will probably show up, but so far you got these images to cover my story!

 

The best greetings from.... Kim Meineche!

 

 

All the redish/blu-green pictures must be seen with the socalled anaglyph glasses

 

The "double-images" are socalled crosseyeviews for those who mastering the technique! :-)

 

 

 

http://www.photosub.dk/wetpix/anaglyph_eri...09_0122_web.jpg

 

http://www.photosub.dk/wetpix/422-hummer-i-stereo3d.jpg

 

http://www.photosub.dk/wetpix/oddesund050909_05cw.jpg

 

http://www.photosub.dk/wetpix/stereomacrouw01web.jpg

 

http://www.photosub.dk/wetpix/stereomacrouw02web.jpg

 

http://www.photosub.dk/wetpix/warig01.jpg

 

http://www.photosub.dk/wetpix/warig02.jpg

 

http://www.photosub.dk/wetpix/warigdok01.jpg

[echeng 0]

Kim -- that is FANTASTIC! Congratulations -- I look forward to seeing more of what you and your new rig are capable of producing.

[rtrski 20]

Do I see a section in an upcoming WPQ that has me crossing my eyes?

[stewsmith 14]

amazing stuff and i can only imagine those images really popping out of the screen 3D style. I need to get a pair of those glasses so i can see you results, i am sure my nephew has a pair somewhere so i will be speaking to him tonight. It must be so rewarding for you to have achieved this. It would be great to see a selection of you images printed at a dive show or gallery.

 

congratulations on your achievement

 

Stew

[Jcdignan 1]

Hi kim,

Congratulation, it's a great job !

 

Can you tell us more about the LanC controller ? if you have a link...

 

Cheers

[PRC 2]

That is all such a cool story.

 

Congratulations.

 

Paul C

[Kimmeineche 0]

Thank you All!

 

Nice to see how interested you are in this subject!

 

The anaglyph way is not the best way of watching these images, but since a lot of people having a pair of these red/green-blue glasses it seems to be a good choice for the presenting of my project here on wetpixel. Compared to the polarized way the anaglyph is missing a lot of color and is quite sensitive to the socalled ghosting-effect in high contrast areas with big diversion in the image. Well, ghosting can also be a problem with the polarized way, but the colors are much, much better.

 

The LanC-controller is from www.Berezin.com (http://www.berezin.com/3d/slr_shepherd.htm)

To use it for my underwater setup, I also needed an extra pair of cables, that was cutted in pieces the same day they arrived, and soldered with new connectors to fit the wires from the Ikelite and Nexus bulkeheads.

 

For those who are interested, the mirror for the macro setup is from www.stereoscopicmirrors.com

I bought the 50/50 1/8" mirror and so far it looks to resist the water..... To prevent it form dry salt, calcium, etc,. I do flush the mirror with freshwater and dry it with compressed air after diving..... don't know how much it actually can stand from drying it with towls, papers, etc. Have only been using (Gentely) a cloth that is meant for glasses and this kind of tool doesn't seem to harm the mirror.

 

It's another part of the story, but in these moments I am also finishing my new 3D display, consisting of 2 19" LCD monitors. To see what it's about please take at look at Uwes (German Genius) setup at: http://3dbruce.blogspot.com/2008/01/poor-m...3d-monitor.html

 

With this I'll be able to watch my images directly on the mirror, with polarized glasses in top quality. Nice for a couple of people at the time......

For a bigger audience I got my digital images (After mounting them in "Photosteremaker") converted to slides and show them with 2 slideprojectors with polarized filters and glasses. This kind of view demands a socalled metalscreen/silverscreen because the light can't get polarized on a normal white screen. In the future I probably buy 2 DLP projectors, but at the moment, these are still outrageously expensive and still seems to miss a lot in performance compared to real slideprojection! :-)

Thanks to the new digital age, it is VERY cheap to buy slideprojectors of top quallity, second hand for a resonable price, since many of these seems to have retired over the last decade.

 

Well, I'll keep you informed with my projects... things are running pretty fast right now... Half part of me wants to finish the projects at my home and the other part wants to be in the water, using both the wideangle and macro rig to do some more stereoscopic underwater images!

 

Questions are more than welcome.

 

All the best.... Kim! :-)

Edited May 12, 2009 by Kimmeineche

[Hani Amir 0]

Man that stereo lobster one looks really cool!

 

Got anymore?

[Kimmeineche 0]

Hi Hani and all others who might be interested:

 

Hunting for more stereo-images and wanting to get more comfortable with my new macro-setup, I was out in my local area this weekend, but the viz was very poor (less than 2 meters) so all I can show you for now is these (in anaglyph):

 

http://www.photosub.dk/wetpix/anaglyph_odd...d170509_035.jpg

 

http://www.photosub.dk/wetpix/anaglyph_odd...d170509_072.jpg

 

http://www.photosub.dk/wetpix/anaglyph_odd...d170509_009.jpg

 

http://www.photosub.dk/wetpix/anaglyph_odd...d170509_022.jpg

 

http://www.photosub.dk/wetpix/anaglyph_odd...d170509_030.jpg

 

http://www.photosub.dk/wetpix/anaglyph_odd...d170509_031.jpg

 

 

The best greetings again from Kim! :-)

 

Man that stereo lobster one looks really cool!

 

Got anymore?

Edited May 17, 2009 by Kimmeineche

[DuncanS 0]

Cool stuff, however I am getting funny looks at the dive centre sitting looking at the screen cross eyed!!!!

 

Good luck with your projects....

 

Duncan

[allen 4]

I grabbed some glasses and these are fantastic - I love the 3d Lobster.

[Kimmeineche 0]

Thank You Allen and Duncan!

 

 

So far the lobster is my favourite macro-subject too... easy to get in position and very impressive in 3D with the claws and antennas.

 

When I do 2D photography I prefer to look at the subject from the side... when I do stereo-photography I mostly look at the subject from the front og from the back, making the subject come out of the screen. Quite a different way of thinking/looking! :-)

 

The best again from Kim! :-)

[Undertow 31]

that is some awesome work kim. i'm not too familiar with stereo images, can you explain what the polarizing filter is for? cheers,

 

chris

[Kimmeineche 0]

Basically seen every stereoscopic photo consist of two images. These images are shot at the same time with the cameras in line, separated in a distance which is very close related to the distance from the cameras to the subject.

 

To watch the pictures like one stereoscopic picture, it is necessary to sepparate the pictures to each eye and this is exactly what the polarizationfilters can do together with polarization glasses.... this makes it possible to watch only one of the pictures to one of the eyes and you get the 3D-vision exactly like you perhaps know from the cinemas with 3D movies.

 

unfortuanetly in danish only, but an ilustration on this site

http://www.geocities.com/stereoskopklubben/projektorer.htm

should give you an idea!

 

Best greetings... Kim! :-)

 

Quite

 

 

that is some awesome work kim. i'm not too familiar with stereo images, can you explain what the polarizing filter is for? cheers,

 

chris

Edited May 22, 2009 by Kimmeineche

[Kimmeineche 0]

To those who want to see a few live-pictures of my macro-system I was on local television today to show my project and tell about my experiece in underwaterphotography!

 

http://www.tv2r.dk/reg2005/player.aspx?id=485840&r=6

 

Unfortuanetly only in danish language!

 

Best greetings... KiM! :-)

[mexwell 0]

Hello Kim,

 

great results... Congratulations!

 

I read on some 3D webpages like http://www.rbt-3d.de/index.php?idcat=21&am...mp;changelang=4

that a 6,5cm clearance between the lenses is best.

How much has your setup? I read that a larger clearance has impact on how the 3D effect

appears and you might get a miniature-effect if it is to large.

Edited January 2, 2010 by mexwell

[Kimmeineche 0]

Hi Mexwell.

 

First of all, thank you very much for your commend!

You are right about the 6,5cm distance between the lenses, but this rule is basically connected to a setup with 35mm lenses in FX-formate.

Roughly said, the distance between the lenses (35mm in FX-formate) must be about 1/30 of the distance to the front of the subject.

More distance between the lenses will for sure result in socalled hyper-stereo with the miniature-look. But if you ask me and perhaps many other 3D-photographers, you can often get away with somthing quite far from this rule.... even this subject is discussed like a "religion" between some other people! :-)

 

My rig has 17cm between the lenes, but I use fisheyelenses (16mm and 10.5mm) which seems to compensate a lot for the bigger distance between the lenses.

I think the mathmatics in my case are rather complicated because of at least two things:

 

1: Affect from the domeport when getting underwater

2: The mathmatics on fisheye-lens is quite different from a rectangular 35mm lens?

 

Another thing is, that these fisheyelenses themselves can make big subjects like people, etc. looking small because of the big DOF.....it just depending on how far away they are in the picture.

 

It could be nice and interesting to see all the mathmatics on this subject on a pice of paper, but unfortuanetly I'm more a guy who goes to see if things works out in pratice so I just made some experiments and find it to work nicely.... see the results (For instance http://wetpixel.com/forums/index.php?showt...3855&st=80) and judge for youself, if you like! :-)

I know that different people looks through different eyes so commends are more than welcome and should be interesting to discuss.

 

The very best regards from Kim Meineche! :-)

 

 

Hello Kim,

 

great results... Congratulations!

 

I read on some 3D webpages like http://www.rbt-3d.de/index.php?idcat=21&am...mp;changelang=4

that a 6,5cm clearance between the lenses is best.

How much has your setup? I read that a larger clearance has impact on how the 3D effect

appears and you might get a miniature-effect if it is to large.

Edited January 2, 2010 by Kimmeineche

[echeng 0]

Kim -

 

I'm also interested the separation distance between lenses (and what has worked best for you). I've tried shooting topside with dual SLRs and have had problems because the separation of lenses is so great -- around 5" is the closest I can get them, that that is shooting both vertically. They are even further apart when shooting horizontally.

 

It would be fine if I were shooting large objects from very far away, but I've not found a way to get the lenses close enough together to shoot typical subjects that are close. Of course, it is easy to shoot 3D with two point & shoot cameras...

 

This is all topside -- the optics may change underwater, of course...

 

Also, my tests were with 20mm, 24mm and 35mm lenses. It may be that fisheye lenses are required with such great separation distances between lenses.

 

Congrats on your success in shooting digital 3D underwater!

[cjmoranuk 0]

I asked CJ to get his 3-D specs from out of his Guiness Book of Records. His first reaction was Wow! Stuff the DSLR Dad. I want to shoot 3-D...

 

Have you any idea how a 12 year old u/w photographer can haemorrage a bank account...? :-)

 

(posted in error on CJ's profile)

Edited January 2, 2010 by cjmoranuk

[Kimmeineche 0]

Hi Eric!

 

I just measured the lensdistance (center to center) on my top-side rig to be 16,4cm, which is also consisting of 2 x NikonD200 like my underwater rig. That said, all my topside stereopictures so far are taken with dual NikonAF-S 18-70mm 3,5-4,5ED, mostly between 18 and 35mm with a distance to the subject between 1,5 to 10 meters..... look at this webpage and go down to the gallery of "Kim Meineche: Frigate Jylland 2008": http://stereoskopklubben.dk/stereobilleder.html

These are all pictures from my early topside setup and shooted vertically.... later I mounted the cameras side by side on a homemade aluminiumbar which can be switched by a henge for vertical photography in a second. My underwater rig has the camerahousings mounted inside the underwaterhousings at the moment and I'm too lazy to take them out, but tomorrow I can get hold on a 5th. camera to take a picture of my topside rig.... then you can see how it's all made.

 

Are you sure your problems aren't connected to the mountingpart of the pictures.... it's very important that the pictures are mounted correctly, so the front of the subject on both pictures match each other.... that's here you get a very big help from the "Stereophotomaker", the free program, that will more or less find the socalled stereo-window automatically when it retceives the left and the right picture that you take from the start.... go an take a look at this webpage from were you can also download the "photostereomaker": http://3ddigitalphoto.com/make3d.asp

 

If you still have problems, just feel free to send me some of your sets of stereopictures and I will mount them and save them in singlepictures before I return them to you. It's very very easy as soon you know how to do it.

 

Underwater I mostly shoot in distances between 1 and 1,5meters and as I menssioned, this works quite good as well with fisheyelenses... I think there is a big difference in using a rectangular 20mm lens, compared to a circular 10.5mm fisheye .... but again.... ALL my pictures goes through a mountingprocess in the "Stereophotomaker" before they can be seen as an exact stereopicture!

 

Best regards again from Kim! :-)

 

Kim -

 

I'm also interested the separation distance between lenses (and what has worked best for you). I've tried shooting topside with dual SLRs and have had problems because the separation of lenses is so great -- around 5" is the closest I can get them, that that is shooting both vertically. They are even further apart when shooting horizontally.

 

It would be fine if I were shooting large objects from very far away, but I've not found a way to get the lenses close enough together to shoot typical subjects that are close. Of course, it is easy to shoot 3D with two point & shoot cameras...

 

This is all topside -- the optics may change underwater, of course...

 

Also, my tests were with 20mm, 24mm and 35mm lenses. It may be that fisheye lenses are required with such great separation distances between lenses.

 

Congrats on your success in shooting digital 3D underwater!

Edited January 2, 2010 by Kimmeineche

[Kimmeineche 0]

Hi!

 

I'm glad you get so excited about my pictures. Unfortuanetly I have no idea on how you can hemmorrage a bank account, but living now in the year 2010 and beeing only 12 years old will give you a very good chance to shoot 3D sometime in the future! :-)

 

Good luck and best regards again from Kim! :-)

 

 

I asked CJ to get his 3-D specs from out of his Guiness Book of Records. His first reaction was Wow! Stuff the DSLR Dad. I want to shoot 3-D...

 

Have you any idea how a 12 year old u/w photographer can haemorrage a bank account...? :-)

 

(posted in error on CJ's profile)

[UW3D 0]

Hi Eric and all,

 

This subject of "stereo base" is, as Kim says, complicated and much debated. Here is a link to one of the best sources for formulas and calculators. http://nzphoto.tripod.com/stereo/3dtake/fbercowitz.htm#vase.

 

When using any of these formulas, you do have to take into account the effect of the housing port and water interface, but it's not hard. Just calculate your underwater field of view (effective focal length) and plug that focal length into the selected formula.

 

My underwater stereo SLR, which I don't think I brought with me to Wakatobi when you and I dove there in 2003, uses Rebikoff corrector lenses that provide the same angle of view in water as in air and completely optically correct for all plane port abberations and distortions. This. of course, makes the stereo base calculations simple.

 

I don't have any images from my SLR on my website, but there are (old) examples of 3D macro and close images. undersea3d.com. The stereo base used in these particular images vary from 4mm to 22mm. My SLR rig is setup with a 72mm base and 40mm lenses (also 40mm in water).

 

For anyone wanting to dip into UW stereo inexpensively, and not needing professional quality results, you can get fair images and learn an awful lot with the new Fuji W-1 digital stereo camera. By the way, the reason the W-1 stereo base is large (77mm) is to make the images look decent with the rather narrow viewing angle of the built in stereo viewscreen on the rear of the camera. When viewed in wider angle viewers or projected in stereo, the images will appear to have more depth than on the camera screen, and thus can be hyper.

 

Like Kim, I am also finally going digital for UW 3D. Only about a decade behind everyone else!

 

Take care,

Mark Blum

 

.

Kim -

 

I'm also interested the separation distance between lenses (and what has worked best for you). I've tried shooting topside with dual SLRs and have had problems because the separation of lenses is so great -- around 5" is the closest I can get them, that that is shooting both vertically. They are even further apart when shooting horizontally.

[UW3D 0]

Correction re 3D images.

 

I misspoke when I said there are no images from my 3D SLR on my website, i.,e., images with a 72mm base and 40mm lenses behind Rebikoff correctors. In fact image numbers 1 and 5 in the Great White gallery (http://www.undersea3d.com/) are shot with this rig. I also used that camera to shoot the surface GW images, with focal lengths between 50 and 100mm. It's a film based rig and the images date back to 2001. I REALLY need to update my website!

 

Mark

[Kimmeineche 0]

Hi Mark!

 

Super to have one of the true pioneers in this forum.... Søren Hertz and Peter Randløv from our Danish Stereoscopic society has told me about you! :-)

 

Thanks for the link with all the formulars and calculators!

 

It should definaitely be interessting to see some pictures of your SLR-rig. What kind of digital rig have you made for underwater work? :-)

 

In deep respect, Kim Meineche! :-)

 

Hi Eric and all,

 

This subject of "stereo base" is, as Kim says, complicated and much debated. Here is a link to one of the best sources for formulas and calculators. http://nzphoto.tripod.com/stereo/3dtake/fbercowitz.htm#vase.

------------cut

 

My underwater stereo SLR, which I don't think I brought with me to Wakatobi when you and I dove there in 2003, uses Rebikoff corrector lenses that provide the same angle of view in water as in air and completely optically correct for all plane port abberations and distortions. This. of course, makes the stereo base calculations simple.

 

----------- cut

Like Kim, I am also finally going digital for UW 3D. Only about a decade behind everyone else!

 

Take care,

Mark Blum

 

----------- cut

[UW3D 0]

Hi Kim,

 

I tried to reply earlier, but don't see that appearing on the forum, so here goes again.

If you communicate with Peter or Soren, please say hello. You should join in the UW 3D image folio we circulate. Ask Soren about it.

 

I don't have any pictures of my UW3D SLR uploaded to a URL which I can link to. However, it's a "siamesed" camera in order to achieve a near "normal" stereo base of 72mm. The housing is custom and controls all functions. The key design feature, as I said, is the incomparable Rebikoff corrector lenses. They maintain the same angle of view as the taking lenses have in air, just like a dome port does, but they are much smaller and have none of the distortions associated with domes or flat ports. I have the mini versions of these correctors built by Dimitri Rebikoff specifically for stereo cameras. See images in his book "Underwater Photography". The first edition has the most pictures. The compact size of the Rebikoff correctors allows the closer lens spacing, and that allows getting closer to subjects.

A dome suitable for a normal stereo base of about 65mm is approximately 36" in diameter, and thus impracticable for most purposes. The Imax camera housing can be fitted with such a dome.

 

You asked about my digital rigs, and actually those are still in development phase. I am moving there, but not there yet. I may sell some of my film based systems, like the RBT S1b and housing, to support the digital push. You have probably seen Peter's S1b...he has the same thing.

 

Best,

Mark

 

 

 

 

 

 

It should definaitely be interessting to see some pictures of your SLR-rig. What kind of digital rig have you made for underwater work? :-)