Coldstreams

If you have a PC running Windows and an Nvidia graphics board or chipset, download and install the latest drivers, and then download and install the 3D Vision Photo Viewer and the NVideo 3D Vision video viewer, both from Nvidia (free).

Once you’ve done this, even if you do not have a 3D monitor, you can drop side-by-side videos into the 3D Vision viewer and play them out as red/cyan anaglyph (this is how I do it as I do not have a 3D monitor yet).

You can also open MPO 3D image files for viewing - if your system is configured right, you can just double click on the .mpo file and it will open in the 3D Vision Photo viewer. I do that and have my system set up to display those files in red/cyan anaglyph mode. The conversion is automatic and seamless.

Both photos taken using a Lumix GH-2 and the 3D lens, which creates a MPO file. The MPO file was then processed in Stereomaker and resized to 400 pixels wide and saved as an animated GIF “3D wiggle” image.

Tip - It seems that to upload animated GIFs to Google+, you need to be about 400 pixels or smaller. If the image is larger, Google+ converts it to a non-animated PNG file.

This is Sable, our Alaskan Malamute.

This is Mocha, our Siberian Husky and retired sled team dog.

Check out http://3dporch.com

Lots of wiggle-based 3D images - and you can upload your own!

Check out this glasses-free “wiggle” 3D image

If your camera has 48 megapixels, how many picture elements do you think your highest resolution photo has?

This specification table for a Sigma camera helps to understand a bit about how “megapixels” may or may not mean what you think it means.

From the table, this is a 48 megapixel camera (which is an amazing camera).

But down below, you can see that the highest resolution images are 4704 x 3136 picture elements wide x tall. Multiply those together and you get 14.76 megapixels, not 48 megapixels. Why?

Because megapixels is counting the sensors of which there are 3 at each pixel. Multiply 14.76 x 3 and you’ll come up with 44.2 million image sensor locations (which is close enough since the entire sensor surface is not used in most cameras). The Foveon sensor uniquely has all 3 sensor sites, per pixel stacked on top of one another.

There’s nothing wrong with these numbers - only a potential misunderstanding of what the term “megapixels” actually means.

Let’s take a look at another camera, the Canon 5D Mark II.

Type
High-sensitivity, high-resolution, large single-plate CMOS sensor

Pixels
Effective pixels: Approx. 21.1 megapixels

Total Pixels
Total pixels: Approx. 22.0 megapixels

And then look at the image sizes

File Size
(1) Large/Fine: Approx. 6.1MB (5616 x 3744 pixels)

(2) Large/Nomal: Approx. 3.0MB (5616 x 3744 pixels)

(3) Medium/Fine: Approx. 3.6MB (4080 x 2720 pixels)

(4) Medium/Normal: Approx. 1.9MB (4080 x 2720 pixels)

(5) Small/Fine: Approx. 2.1MB (2784 x 1856 pixels)

(6) Small/Normal: Approx. 1.0MB (2784 x 1856 pixels)

(7) RAW: Approx. 25.8MB (5616 x 3744 pixels)

(8) sRAW 1: Approx. 14.8MB (3861 x 2574 pixels)

(9) sRAW 2: Approx. 10.8MB (2784 x 1856 pixels)

With the Canon 5D Mark II, the image resolution of 5616 x 3744 is 21 megapixels, yet the camera likely has more “photosites” within the imager.

This leads to the conclusion that megapixel camera ratings do not necessarily  mean what you think they mean. And that the megapixel count may not be nearly as important as some think it is. Ultimately, lens quality, use of a tripod, sensor noise characteristics and noise removal algorithms, sharpening algorithms and general photographic skill may  be much more important in image resolution than the megapixel count - however it may be defined.

Related articles

• Sigma SD2 Merrill
• Nokia Lumia 920 tipped for wireless charging but just 8MP PureView
• Sigma DP2X…There’s a New Kid in Town!
• Sigma’s DP1 Merrill compact available mid-September for $999
• Photo files 101: All about megapixels, megabytes, and DPI
• Sony’s New “stacked” Image Sensors Open Door to Smaller Devices, More Pixels
• After PureView, what’s next frontier for Nokia imaging? How about graphene based photo-sensors

If you read this on coldstreams.com, you may not know about my 3D photo and video blog at http://coldstreams.com/video. And vice versa.

You can read both as a single blog on my Tumblr page at http://coldstreams.tumblr.com

All posts from Coldstreams and Coldstreams.com/video are posted in one place on that web site. Thanks for visiting!

I am a big fan of U.S. Civil War battle re-enactments and have created many videos of these, on Youtube. Here is the 1812 Battle between French and Russian troops - re-enacted with 3,000 soldiers and 300 horses and much more - well done! Battle of the century redux: Grand Napoleonic battle reenacted (VIDEO, PHOTOS) — RT.

While hiking I took several 3D photos using a single Canon SX1 IS camera. This works by taking a photo and then sliding the camera a couple of inches to the right and taking the same photo again. The left and right images are then combined with Stereomaker to create a 3D image.

Obviously, when handheld, camera pointing is not perfectly aligned in the left and right images. Much of the alignment can be cleaned up in Stereomaker but there will be little artifacts, like lens barrel distortion, still present. But still, this is an interesting way of easily photographing 3D photos of stationary subjects.

(Click on any image for full size - all are in red/cyan stereo anaglyph format)

I missed this: Aestesis, mobile things and all that stuff » Polaroid SC1630, Compact 16MP Camera with Android OS, the first SmartCamera.

• Last week, Samsung announced the Galaxy Camera, running Android 4.1 and featuring a quad core processor.
• New Nikon camera runs Android.
• Sony announced a app-capable camera - but it does not run Android.

Some rumor sites have said that an upcoming Panasonic Lumix GH-3 camera will feature its own custom software platform as well, enabling third parties to add additional capabilities to the camera. Just a rumor.