Create 3D portraits with 2 Nikon D90 camera

Alex Fry and Jamie Nimmo has combine 2 Nikon D90 camera together this will allow them to take 3D portrait for their upcoming 3D photography exhibition “Stereo Portrait Project” in Sydney Australia on 27th May. Below is a short description of how the 3D camera work and assemble.

They used off the shelf hardware and software, from the cameras, lighting, triggering, post production to the printing of the book. They shot using Nikon d90’s with shutter cables connected to an RF trigger. The Lighting system was three Nikon sb900’s, one connected via pc sync in a soft box, the other two optically slaved.

A custom camera rig was needed to put the cameras as close together as possible, roughly emulating the distance between the human eyes. A number of prototype of this camera rig was created before the success of this present custom made camera rig. Since mostly the picture to be taken are mostly portraits, they have decided to mount the cameras vertically base to base.

To synchronize the cameras they used an RF trigger split out to two preload shutter release cables. They manage to get a reliable sync up to 1/160 speed. Giving them the ability to have people move around, talk to them and not inhibit their performance. This was very important since hands in front of the body look fantastic in 3d.

The image pairs were then sorted using Aperture before being exported into Nuke, where final tweaks were made before combining them into the final Anagylphic 3D images.

Aperture made sorting and tagging hundreds of very similar left and right images much more manageable, while Nuke allowed them to simply adapt many of the same 3d workflows we use in their day jobs as stereoscopic visual effects compositors.

via nikonrumors