Best 3d effect lenses...suggestion?

Hari · Expire: 2015-05-27

some mild 3d in there?

manfred · Joined: 14 Feb 2011 Posts: 24

cheap 70-200L f4 (bought only for kids, because is AF)
is this looks like 3D or just perfect main subject separation from background?
And yes, i agree canon lenses are flat and boring

cooltouch · Joined: 15 Jan 2009 Posts: 9097 Location: Houston, Texas

ManualFocus-G · Expire: 2014-11-24

ChromaticAberration · Joined: 23 Dec 2010 Posts: 819 Location: Portugal

If by "3D" one is talking about harsh subject/background separation, then any reasonably sharp lens with a nice maximum aperture, I'd say at least f/2.8 will probably achieve that.

Jethro Tull · Joined: 31 Dec 2010 Posts: 68 Location: SCOTLAND

14th July 2011 049 by Rowdy Rebel1, on Flickr

The Super Ozeck's a nice little lens for the 3d effect Very Happy

15th July 2011 018 by Rowdy Rebel1, on Flickr

cooltouch · Joined: 15 Jan 2009 Posts: 9097 Location: Houston, Texas

ManualFocus-G · Expire: 2014-11-24

That's certainly what I consider "pop" and many people consider "3D". I think others on here would describe 3D as an image where it appears that objects "pop" in what seems like different focal planes. That is REALLY difficult to do, but possible nonetheless Smile

metallaro1980 · Posted: Fri Aug 12, 2011 1:16 pm Post subject:

rwg · Joined: 13 Aug 2011 Posts: 20 Location: Holland

Fist of all hello to all. I'm new here on the forum.
I study audio visual design in Rotterdam, Holland.
I caught the Manual focus virus about halve a year ago.

So when i think about this subject. I would say,
and this is purely speculation on my part. (nothing scientific)
The whole 3D "pop" has something to do with how we perceive things. How we see things with our own eyes in the real world.

Now the obvious thing here is that a picture is a flat plane. so when we look at it pixel for pixel, every pixel is the at the same
distance from our eye and thus equally in focus to our eyes. and our brain should recognize this as something flat.

But the brain and our sense of dimension is easy to fool. Just look at all the optical illusions floating around the web.
I think this 3d effect people talk about is just like that. If we present our brain with something that looks close enough
to the image that we would expect to see with our own eyes.
The Brain does the rest.

I think a big part of it is (others have said this) the transition from in focus to out of focus areas, the amount of blur in the background
in relation to the distance to the subject but als the distance to the camera. It all needs to be close to what we would see with our own eyes.
Taking pictures at F1.4 will not give the best 3d effect. Because our brain will detect that there is something wrong with depth of field in the image.
And thus while it may have a nicely isolated subject is still looks flat.

so then there is the fact that our eyes have a certain focal length this may or may not be a factor in this matter
Also (dont quote me on this) i think recall from biology class that the color and light receptors in our eyes are not equally
distributed across our field of view. This is fine because were we look is what is in focus anyway.
(but it could mean that some vignette would help the illusion or maybe even subtle saturation differences)

a picture on the other hand has a fixed focus point we can chose not to look at the in focus areas. Thats where things go wrong again.
I think the best 3d pop is achieved when we can somehow keep the eye from wandering off from the point of focus in the picture.
think light colour composition dof ect. and at the same time getting every thing just right for our brain to be tricked.

so i guess im on the "its mostly technique" camp here.

But after writing this i am definitely going to look for the equivalent fstop range of the human eye
and delve a bit deeper than the the eye is equivalent to 50mm on FF in length.

then try to put it in practice Very Happy

So wat do you guys think is there anything to this? Or is it just senseless rambling from some weird dutch student Smile

P.S Sorry for the Wall-O-Text

Excalibur · Expire: 2014-04-21

Well for something to be true/accepted it has to be repeatable and I can get pop from my non expensive lenses but I don't know when or how it happens i.e. I cannot plan for a 3d pop.

I don't know if the pop shows here at 1000px but this is shot from a zoom at 200mm that no one wants.
City of London 17 miles away, Ensinor zoom, Reala, supermarket dev and scan:-

cooltouch · Joined: 15 Jan 2009 Posts: 9097 Location: Houston, Texas

I don't mind admitting still being confused about the term. When I first read it, I thought of the idea of separating the subject from both the background and the foreground, like this:

But apparently there's more to it than that. Which is why I was suggesting in a previous post it was more the case of the subject "growing" toward the viewer. So it makes me wonder if an image in which most everything is in focus from near to far, like this one, is what is meant:

And if it's neither of these, even though I can apparently describe it without seeing it, I can't see it. Unless I'm using those 3-D glasses, apparently. Cool

ManualFocus-G · Expire: 2014-11-24

Pop!

ManualFocus-G · Expire: 2014-11-24

Again, pop rather than 3D.

rwg · Joined: 13 Aug 2011 Posts: 20 Location: Holland

@ cooltouch if you look at the picture with the water pump that manfred posted the back ground is slightly out of focus the amount of blur to mee feels similar to what i think would be seeing if i was there looking at the actual thing. my brain gets tricked and asl long as i focus on the pump in the picture to me it as a 3d feel.

if you take a look at the picture of the segul seagu.. erm bird that you posted. while the is nice isolation of the subject going on. i have never had such a shallow dof and such a blurred horizon. when i was looking at an actual bird at that distance.

with the cliff its the other way around i don't think i've ever seen everything sharp at once while looking at something

so for a 3d illusion i think you need to be somewhere in between the two pics you posted something that like what we see wen we walk out side.

i think manualfocus-G nailed the dof here and it could be (again just speculations) i think a slightly shorter/wider lens might end up making it even more 3d (to be honest this is a really good example i think)

ManualFocus-G · Expire: 2014-11-24

I haven't had as much luck with getting pop from wider lenses, but I know it's possible to get some great 3D landscapes with Distagon lenses.

Here's a poor attempt with the Vario-Sonnar 35-70/3.4

cooltouch · Joined: 15 Jan 2009 Posts: 9097 Location: Houston, Texas

Pop?

ManualFocus-G · Expire: 2014-11-24

That's more like it!

Phenix jc · Joined: 19 Dec 2009 Posts: 398 Location: France

3D ? Pop ?

rwg · Joined: 13 Aug 2011 Posts: 20 Location: Holland

ok so i thought i would do a little test se see i i could get it when i want to get the effect.

ok so i tested out all the Fstops and il show you 3

first to clear things up this is shot on a nikon d7000 with a MC Pentacon auto 29mm f2.8 using an adapter with corrective glass.

so thats a crop factor of 1.5 1.5x29= 43.5 and that corective glass gives i beleve and extra 1.1 so 1.1x43.5= 47.85

so this would be equivalent to close to 48mm on ful frame.

first pic f2.8

so thats the first

second pic at f4.0

there we go
now from f4 to f5.6 there wasn't alot difference (the was a bit and i liked f4 better)
last one F8

i dont know what you guys see but to me it seems f4 pops the most
even the slight difference in DoF affects the pop effect a lot in my opinion.
and it might have something to do with the sharpness too.

sadly i dont have a wider lens except the tokina 11-16 but i think thats to wide but i could try i at 16mm[/img]

rwg · Joined: 13 Aug 2011 Posts: 20 Location: Holland

humm i notice that once uploaded and viuwed on the forum the diffrences are smaller than wen viewed bigger in lightroom. >_<

pst · Expire: 2013-08-17

Thank you rwg!!! You are the first one to mention what I was thinking all along:
It's must appear like a "real" image to our eye.
I believe it is the right combination of subject (+ sharpness), transition zone and background, plus rendition of the background (bokeh) that gives images that appear "natural" to the eye!
To get all these things right needs not only good skill, but sometimes simply luck.

The focal lenght is not very important.
The aperture has to be chosen, so that the background is out of focus, but not too much, so this it totally dependent on focal length and distance, so use whatever Fstop is "required"! Even more important than background is the transition zone! There must be elements binding the subject and the background in this transition zone! The rendition of the zone and background are of course lens dependent, the lens is of extreme importance IMO! But don't forget; All the artistic decision considering perception must be met!

On Canon lenses:
I really enjoy my Canon lenses, but I don't think they do much 3D. (Don't confuse it with "pop", plenty of that possible with large aperture lenses.)
That's the reason I got into (old) MF lenses, there is just a something that modern lenses can't do Wink

ManualFocus-G · Expire: 2014-11-24

I believe several things are needed:

1. Composition
2. High micro-contrast
3. Accurate focusing of the subject
4. An f stop which produces a sharp subject
5. Some shallowish depth of field somewhere in the image

rwg · Joined: 13 Aug 2011 Posts: 20 Location: Holland

yeah i totaly agree manualfocus-g i think we got the ingredients (or at least a bunch of them)
now we can try to achieve it when we want the effect.

ah yes centaur i think you are right about the focal length i saw some 200mm shots of birds in flight with very ugly buildings in the background but the rending of these out of focus buildings seemed natural and made the birds pop. ofc the birds were sharp enough to look real.

ChromaticAberration · Joined: 23 Dec 2010 Posts: 819 Location: Portugal