Andrew Rieger
Well-known member
So I woke up this morning and I was working on some HDR photography and then for whatever reason, I also was researching about 3D beamsplitter rigs. This got me thinking, What other cool things could be done with two cameras pointing at the same subject from the same perspective. First and foremost, I need to know if the two images that come out of a beamsplitter such as the Element Technica and Pace rigs are identical. Is one brighter than the other?
Idea #1: HDR video
HDR photography typically utilizes two or more frames to expose different areas of an image to get one with a dynamic range higher than is possible to capture with a single frame. Sony has a feature in some of its SLR's that takes two pictures, one exposing for shadows and one exposing for highlights and combines the two.
I was thinking that using a beamsplitter with RED, you could overlap the lenses exactly, so there is no inter-ocular distance and expose one camera for the darker areas and the other for the lighter areas, allowing you to expose your whole image without the use of additional lighting.
Some potential problems:
1. Say a frame from one camera is shooting at 1/48th of a second while the other is shooting at 1/250th of a second. Combining the two in post could create some strange artifacts (normal looking motion in part of the image and a different look in other parts), is it possible to merge to frames shot at different shutter speeds and still get a normal looking image when the video plays back?
2. Say you keep the shutter speed at 1/48th for both cameras and get exposure for the different cameras using T stops. The areas that are in focus will be different between the two images. Compositing could solve this problem but it would take forever.
Idea #2: Super Deep Depth of Field or Shallow Focus with Two Objects in Focus Without Racking
This is pretty self explanatory, one camera focuses on closer objects and the other focuses on objects farther away to get a very deep depth of field. Look up focus bracketing in google for a still photo example.
Or, you could open up all the way, get one object closer to the subject in focus, have the area behind be out of focus only to have an object even farther away be in focus as well.
Imagine an image like this going away from the lens.
1. Person in focus close to lens 2. shallow focus behind that person 3. object some distance away in focus.
This was only possible before in computer animation. Just imagine an image with shallow depth of field but two separate objects away from each other in focus. I am thinking about a dialogue scene where the subjects are isolated from their backgrounds (shallow DOF) but in focus without the need to rack between them.
Any thoughts on these ideas? I always like to think about different ways of using tech to get interesting new effects.
Idea #1: HDR video
HDR photography typically utilizes two or more frames to expose different areas of an image to get one with a dynamic range higher than is possible to capture with a single frame. Sony has a feature in some of its SLR's that takes two pictures, one exposing for shadows and one exposing for highlights and combines the two.
I was thinking that using a beamsplitter with RED, you could overlap the lenses exactly, so there is no inter-ocular distance and expose one camera for the darker areas and the other for the lighter areas, allowing you to expose your whole image without the use of additional lighting.
Some potential problems:
1. Say a frame from one camera is shooting at 1/48th of a second while the other is shooting at 1/250th of a second. Combining the two in post could create some strange artifacts (normal looking motion in part of the image and a different look in other parts), is it possible to merge to frames shot at different shutter speeds and still get a normal looking image when the video plays back?
2. Say you keep the shutter speed at 1/48th for both cameras and get exposure for the different cameras using T stops. The areas that are in focus will be different between the two images. Compositing could solve this problem but it would take forever.
Idea #2: Super Deep Depth of Field or Shallow Focus with Two Objects in Focus Without Racking
This is pretty self explanatory, one camera focuses on closer objects and the other focuses on objects farther away to get a very deep depth of field. Look up focus bracketing in google for a still photo example.
Or, you could open up all the way, get one object closer to the subject in focus, have the area behind be out of focus only to have an object even farther away be in focus as well.
Imagine an image like this going away from the lens.
1. Person in focus close to lens 2. shallow focus behind that person 3. object some distance away in focus.
This was only possible before in computer animation. Just imagine an image with shallow depth of field but two separate objects away from each other in focus. I am thinking about a dialogue scene where the subjects are isolated from their backgrounds (shallow DOF) but in focus without the need to rack between them.
Any thoughts on these ideas? I always like to think about different ways of using tech to get interesting new effects.
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