Grand Canyon Stereo!

It was last year that I started taking some 3D shots of the Canyon in earnest. I had plans to do more this year, especially with the new 6D camera, but long hours and warm temps added to my overall lethargy... So I only got a few frame sets in, some similar in scope to last year's efforts. Note that ALL of these images need the red/blue anaglyph glasses to see the 3D effect.


The new 6D camera has a sensor twice as large and nearly twice as many pixels as my 8+ year old XSi Canon. It manifests itself is several ways, but shown here is one of them. At left is an anaglyph of Isis Temple with the 6D and 70-200 zoom set to 200mm. One has the choice of down-sampling to the 1600 pixel max limit of the blog, or cropping to full resolution for maximum scale, as shown at right. Both should show similar sharpness when the full-size images are loaded, even though they are taken from the same 2 images!

I was on a stroll between the major hotels of El Tovar and Bright Angel to take these. The baselines varied - Isis Temple was further away so needed at least 80 meters or more. Here at left is Maricopa Point on the West Rim Drive - also not very far away, so only used a 40 meter baseline - about the same for "the Battleship, shown at right just below the rim off the Lodges...

A careful observer might spot some differences from last year's anaglyphs... One of the decisions that have to be made in assembling these is the "zero point" crossing. It is the part of the picture where the two images are exactly aligned and will appear to hover at the same level as the text or the edge of the frame. In the earlier efforts, I chose the zero point pretty much randomly - as a result parts of the 3D image appeared to hover in front of the frame. After discussions with friends over the last year, I've been encouraged to place the zero point near the front of the image, so the entire 3D image will be below the page. While my eyes are still limber enough to converge upon most anything, my friends encouraged me to do it for eye comfort in merging the images...

Here is a wide shot combining the distant Isis Temple with the closer Battleship. Using a large baseline would introduce the afore-mentioned issues in merging the nearer part of the image. So I used a moderate baseline that provided good stereo effect on the Battleship. As a result, the 3D effect in the far distant canyons is reduced compared to the Isis anaglyph at the top of the post... The image at left was taken with the 6D, while the one at right was taken with my IR-modified camera. While the image appears mostly black and white (save the red/blue colors for the anaglyph 3D image), the IR wavelengths provide better haze penetration and darker sky. I'm thinking also that the 3D effect is stronger in the near B&W image, compared to color...


And just to prove that you don't need distant mesas and canyons for stereo effects, after the morning walk when all of these were taken we met some of the crew at the local pizza joint and I took a stereo pair of the "We Cook Special". Cool, eh? Ok, enough of the 3D stuff for now!