Mike Ballew
Second Unit
I've been a stereo photography enthusiast for 32 years now. I'm also a huge 3-D movie buff, and have made an effort to see as many classic and recent 3-D films as possible.
I talk a lot about this eccentric hobby of mine. It's gotten to the point where my friends, who have at best only a casual interest in the subject, sometimes think to mention things like interocular, interaxial, parallax, convergence and crosstalk in ordinary conversation.
Once I went with a friend to see an IMAX science documentary. The imagery was pretty spectacular, with plenty of negative parallax and objects projecting into theatre space. A few minutes into the show, my friend leaned over and whispered, "Say, is this that 'crosstalk' you're always talking about?"
I didn't know what to say. I wasn't seeing any crosstalk. Like, none. "What do you mean?" I asked.
"Sometimes the picture looks doubled, even with the glasses. Isn’t that crosstalk?"
Immediately I reasoned that my friend was having trouble fusing the images, and was conflating that with crosstalk.
That little incident nags at me to this day, and makes me wonder: Is it possible that some folks—not all, just a few—who complain about crosstalk or ghosting, especially in older 3-D films, are actually having problems with fusion and stereopsis?
Of course, the best way to determine this is to advise people to check for crosstalk in one eye at a time. If you see a double image through one or the other lens of the 3-D glasses, then that's genuine crosstalk. But the question still stands. Your thoughts?
I talk a lot about this eccentric hobby of mine. It's gotten to the point where my friends, who have at best only a casual interest in the subject, sometimes think to mention things like interocular, interaxial, parallax, convergence and crosstalk in ordinary conversation.
Once I went with a friend to see an IMAX science documentary. The imagery was pretty spectacular, with plenty of negative parallax and objects projecting into theatre space. A few minutes into the show, my friend leaned over and whispered, "Say, is this that 'crosstalk' you're always talking about?"
I didn't know what to say. I wasn't seeing any crosstalk. Like, none. "What do you mean?" I asked.
"Sometimes the picture looks doubled, even with the glasses. Isn’t that crosstalk?"
Immediately I reasoned that my friend was having trouble fusing the images, and was conflating that with crosstalk.
That little incident nags at me to this day, and makes me wonder: Is it possible that some folks—not all, just a few—who complain about crosstalk or ghosting, especially in older 3-D films, are actually having problems with fusion and stereopsis?
Of course, the best way to determine this is to advise people to check for crosstalk in one eye at a time. If you see a double image through one or the other lens of the 3-D glasses, then that's genuine crosstalk. But the question still stands. Your thoughts?