iPhone Closeups

Any­one who wants to take close­up stereo pho­tos has to deal with the fol­low­ing dilem­ma. Using a twin cam­era set­up sets a min­i­mum base­line that is still too large to achieve the right depth. Switch­ing to sequen­tial stereo pho­tos elim­i­nates this prob­lem but excludes pho­tos of mov­ing objects.

But sev­er­al apps like i3DMovieCam by the Japan­ese devel­op­er Masu­ji Suto make use of the pos­si­bil­i­ty to con­trol two of the back cam­eras of an iPhone simul­ta­ne­ous­ly. This also results in a fixed base­line, which is too small for stan­dard stereo pho­tos — but it’s exact­ly what we need for close­ups. Of course, you have to pay atten­tion to sev­er­al tech­ni­cal and artis­tic fac­tors (par­tial­ly described in Stereo pho­tog­ra­phy to go) but it opens up the world of small ani­mals, insects and mov­ing objects to every­day stereo photography.

© 2021 Pas­cal Martiné