Do It Yourself 3D Photography with a SmartPhone
It is easy to use your SmartPhone for 3D photography. First, download 3DSteroidPro from Google Play Store, (costs about £2.00). You will also need a simple 3D viewer such as the Lite Owl designed by Brian May available from; http://shop.londonstereo.com/LITE.html, £4.50, or the Loreo Lite viewer from; https://www.widescreen-centre.co.uk/loreo-lite-fold-flat-3d-viewer-one.html.
Open the 3D Steroid Pro App on the SmartPhone and it will display 2 images side by side of a woman showing how to take 3D images.
Hold the phone in landscape format; You need to take 2 images, moving the phone between shots. You need to keep the phone at right angles to the imaginary line between the lens and subject, but the app helps you to get it right. The closest object in the image should be no closer than 2m (30 times the lens displacement), if you include subjects at infinity.
Tap the screen and a menu will appear along the bottom of the screen. Tap the Camera icon and compose the image on screen. Tap on the Lens icon to take the first image. You will now see the first image on the screen together with the view the camera is ready to take. Move the camera about 65mm (2.5”) to the right and take the second image, keeping the camera horizontal. Now tap the screen to get the menu along the bottom of the screen and tap Auto Adj. The software will align the images and display them side by side in correct alignment. Now tap Menu and tap Save.
Rather better results would be obtained by mounting the SmartPhone on a slide bar fixed at right angles to the camera. This will ensure that the 2 views are taken with the camera axes parallel.
Viewing the images. Take your 3D viewer (Lite Owl or Loreo) and adjust the SmartPhone to the correct distance so the image is in focus, align the viewer so your left eye sees the left image and the right eye sees the right image and the image should jump into 3D. It is amazing. Try it out; it really is very simple.
Free-viewing. Looking at the side-by-side images on the phone, try to defocus your eyes so that they look straight ahead, with lines of sight parallel, as if viewing MagicEye photos. You may see 3 images; if so, concentrate on the central image, which should appear in 3D; it’s just like magic.
Brian May made a video explaining giving some more information on how to take 3D photos using a SmartPhone; https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0mWoiJPytco or just Google ‘Youtube Brian May 3D SmartPhone’.
Glasses-free 3D Viewing. Some SmartPhones have a barrier screen which allows 3D viewing without using a viewer, eg the RoKiT IO PRO 3D, DoogeeY6 Max 3D, or the Elephone P10 3D.
Viewing 3D Images on a Computer. The images will appear much wider on a computer screen, making viewing with a Loreo or Lite Owl viewers impossible. I use a pair of NVP prismatic specs from http://www.nvp3d.com/en/shop, (approx. £10).
Nature and Travel Photography in 3D 