New Clip "Water" shot with new rig.

[Alister Chapman]

I have been shaking down a new side by side rig that uses a modified EX1 and an EX3. I will be using this rig for continued filming of the "Elemental Project", a journey of adventure and discovery witnessing some of the planet most spectacular events. I first real trip will be to the Arctic next month with further trips to Iceland, Tornado Chasing, Hurricane and Storm Chasing. The rig features quick release mounts, servo driven covergence and is designed to be compact and rugged.

I took it to film some scenic views and waves breaking on a beach as part of a shake down to iron out any bugs before we leave home. I'm pleased with the way it worked not requiring any adjustment between locations. One of the QR mounts got stuck and that needs sorting and there is a small difference in black levels on the cameras I need to look into.

Any way the end result is up on Vimeo as an HD anaglyph.

Water 3D on Vimeo

For more on the Elemental project:

Extreme & Severe Weather, Storm Chasing Photography & Videography - The Elemental Project

[Marco Neiva]

Hi Alister,

great 3D footage, only with the nature is possible to do fantastic 3d images, congratulations.

I saw that some shots are close of the water, did you use zoom in any shot?
you said that used 2 XDCAM side-by-syde, which is the minimum interocular distance that you get?

i liked to see a version with two files separated, it is possible?

thanks, Marco Neiva.

[Alister Chapman]

The minimum Inter Axial distance is 120mm with the EX3 hand grip and lens hood removed. However most of these shots were done at 165mm. Yes I do use the zoom. I have a custom controller that controls both cameras and starts them and stops them in sync and gives fixed speed zoom control. I am working on variable control at the moment.

[Tim Dashwood]

Alister your anaglyph encoding is very good. It is just the right amount to maintain most of the colour. I'm also impressed with the Vimeo encoding because as we all know it is very difficult to maintain anaglyph cues after encoding for the internet.

I have one pointer though for your depth positioning...and this is something you can fix in post.

With landscape 3D it is almost impossible to bring any ground or grounded objects out into the audience side of the stereo window. The shot with the stream and the rock in the FG is a great example of why this causes strain to the brain.
That rock is positioned to be on the viewer's side of the stereo window but because it is actually touching the edge of the frame our brains can't resolve it as being in negative space. This can cause eye strain as our brain and eyes fight over the logical conclusion of positioning at the screen versus the supposed position based on the depth cue.

As a rule of thumb only objects that do not touch the edge of the screen can be positioned on the viewer's side of the stereo window. The best way to line them up in post is to perfectly converge the closest object. If you have a tree branch or flower in the FG that doesn't touch the edge of frame than it is ideal for bringing out of the stereo window.

[Alister Chapman]

Hi Tim, I am aware of Wall Eye and it effects. The footage in the clip are pretty much straight from the camera and I have not played around with the stereo window yet. I only shot this on Monday.

It's my view that objects that touch the side of the screen can be brought into the positive 3D space provided the cues are strong enough and the object comes at least 20% in from the edge of the screen. The ground can be made to work well in the foreground as it is normally the full width of the screen and thus the foreground cue is strong enough to overcome the small amount of missing information at the very edges. It also depends on how the clip is viewed. If your watching on a small screen that is only filling a small part of your vision it is very difficult to make foreground images work as there are too many distracting cues at the edge of the screen. However if you are viewing on a large screen that is close to filling your field of view then it is a different matter. How you view a stereoscopic movie is very important and affects the way you shoot.

Certainly much of my clip may work a little better if the stereo window is pushed further back. It also works much much better when not so compressed and viewed full screen on a big screen. As I said this was a test run with a new rig and I learnt some more in the process. In future with this rig I will use less convergence and shoot near parallel as this will push the stereo window further back, rather than doing it in post which may lead to excessive separation in the far distance. Ideally I would prefer to use a beam splitter with a smaller inter-axial but they just are not rugged nor portable enough for the kind of shoots I will be doing.

[Alister Chapman]

When I get some more Vimeo bandwidth (next week) I'll post a new version using a floating window which should address the wall-eye issues on some of the shots.