Okay, time for a mind game. PLEASE try to get this to work. :) This is incredibly cool when you get it to work – by crossing your eyes. This is a stereoscopic 3D image of frost.
This is set of where the right image is on the left, and the left on the right. If you cross your eyes such that you see three images, focus intently on the “middle” image which is a visual overlap of the two frames. Once your vision “locks” the chaos of crystals will have depth information added. A great tutorial on cross-viewing 3D can be found here:
www.kula3d.com/how-to-use-the-cross-eyed-method
This image is frost growing on the side of my chest freezer. I left the lid open a crack on purpose, so that moist room-temperature air would enter and deposit freezing water vapour into these types of structures. Worked like a charm! Illuminated with a ring flash held underneath the frost, I would move the light around in various positions until the reflections off the various crystal facets was pleasing. Because these reflections are very direct they will change slightly based on the lens position; since they are not identical between the two frames, you see a “sparkle” effect.
The image was taken with a purpose-built stereoscopic 3D macro lens from deWijs, a 3D company in The Netherlands. The lenses have sadly been out of production for quite some time but periodically used copies show up on eBay. It’s a really useful tool to shoot stereoscopic content, but it’s not required. Even with just your regular lenses you can easily shoot images like this!
You simply need to move the camera left or right and take photos at slightly different positions, while keeping the camera pointed in the same direction. The most convenient way to do this for macro photography is to use a focusing rail, but mount the camera 90 degrees from normal operation. Now you can quickly shift the camera in predictable increments. Take a few images at different separations to see how much depth you’d like!
I enjoy shooting stereo 3D images, even though it’s an incredible small niche. As human beings, we have two eyes and perceive our world with depth – why should be limit our artistic adventures to be an entire dimension less than our perception? I wrote a whole chapter on the subject in my new book, and included red/cyan anaglyph glasses:
skycrystals.ca/product/pre-order-macro-photography-the-un...