Fun with parallax

[JayUtah]

I have mountains, but I don't have a lunar module. So I used a penguin instead.

Let's start with this picture.



A fairly stylish penguin with mountains in the background.

Now this one.



Where's the penguin? Still there, but I moved to the right to take the picture. The mountain appears identical, but astute viewers can see a shift in certain foreground elements against the background.



Where's the penguin? Behind me. The mountains are still identical. The parallax is more difficult to detect here.



The penguin is back, but in a "different" position relative to the mountains. (The penguin never moved in this sequence of photos -- only the photographer.) The penguin appears smaller here.

Now let's try a Jack White trick:



Whoa, what happened? The image has been resized so as to render the penguin the same apparent size as the one at first. This makes the mountains appear the "wrong" size. Cutting and cropping images to manufacture these kinds of "anomalies" is a common Jack White deception.



Where's the penguin? Still there:



but not very visible.

Do you see how easy it is to change the foreground with no -- or almost no -- discernible shift in the background? The mountain back there is not a backdrop, it's Point of the Mountain just outside my office.

www.paragliders.com/point.htm

[martin]

jayutah said:

I have mountains, but I don't have a lunar module. So I used a penguin instead.

Let's start with this picture.



A fairly stylish penguin with mountains in the background.

Is this a linux penguin?

Martin

[JayUtah]

It's the closest I could find to one.

[echnaton]

jayutah said:

It's the closest I could find to one.

When you said stylish, I thought of Opus!

[Joe Durnavich]

A banana split would have looked nice too. (Or am I thinking of the wrong company?)

Your example where you re-scaled the foreground object to create an "anomalously" large background feature (or vice-versa) really is a classic Jack White technique, even in his Zaprduder film studies. Nodody, even John Costalla, could get him to understand why that doesn't work.

[JayUtah]

Someone shouldn't have to explain to a "photographic analyst" why that doesn't work.

Adjusting the relative sizes of the foreground and background through camera positioning and focal length is an elementary photographer's technique too. You don't have to be a photo analyst to know that. As long as Jack White continues to make his claims as if they are from an "experienced photographer," those gaffes will still be an issue.

[martin]

jayutah said:

Someone shouldn't have to explain to a "photographic analyst" why that doesn't work.

Adjusting the relative sizes of the foreground and background through camera positioning and focal length is an elementary photographer's technique too. You don't have to be a photo analyst to know that. As long as Jack White continues to make his claims as if they are from an "experienced photographer," those gaffes will still be an issue.

Reference for this is Vertigo from Alfred Hitchcok! In this film, he simultaneously zooms in to subject while moving camera back, and also the reverse.

Martin

[Data Cable]

martin said:

Reference for this is Vertigo from Alfred Hitchcok! In this film, he simultaneously zooms in to subject while moving camera back, and also the reverse.

A gag I've seen used in dozens of movies and TV shows, but for a long time I couldn't figure out how it was done... until I stumbled upon it myself playing with a camera with a zoom lens.

[Al Johnston]

Commonly known as the "Trombone Shot", I believe ;D

[Glom]

Are you going to add the cute little penguin to the relevant page?

[TaeKwonDan]

You've proben an important scientific theorem that I have been working on for a long time.




Everything is better with penguins.

[echnaton]

I feel I must point out the “elephant in the living room” that everyone else is ignoring in Jay’s pictures. If you notice in the photos, the curbs along the edge of the drive, you will see that they are not parallel. Now one could make sophisticated arguments about the projection of three dimensional space onto a two dimensional plane but that still won’t make the curbs in the pictures parallel. I just ask everyone to look at the photos and judge for themselves.

[Joe Durnavich]

It must be tough to drive in Utah when the curbs always converge in on you like that.

That "mountain" by the way, looks like a mound of dirt just past the end of the road. I live near the Illinois & Michigan Canal, and there is a mound of dirt left over from a construction project that looks just like that.

[JayUtah]

Well, the "mound of dirt" caught an airplane over the winter.



Geologically it's quite interesting because the face on both sides is nearly planar. This makes for wonderfully laminar airflow and some of the best hang-gliding in the world.

[sts60]

Speaking of catching airplanes, I was recently fortunate enough to take a "flightseeing" trip to Denali (Mt. McKinley to you Ohioans), during which we landed on the snow in the Don Sheldon Amphitheater - a sort of glacier bay about 5500' in elevation. Inspired by the outstanding work of Jay, Bob, and you other guys, I tried to take a few "parallax" type pictures. Cross your fingers that they come out - yes, I used a primitive 20th-century Earth device known as a "film" camera.

One of the many interesting things, and apropos to this thread, is the misperception of scale. The pilot asked us to estimate the distance to a rock outcropping down the way. Most of us guessed 1 or 2 miles (he had received guesses as short as 500 yards -- 1 mile = 1760 yards). The actual distance was eight miles.

So much for "common sense" in estimating distances in an unfamiliar landscape. And we were there, not just looking at a photograph. If the film gods are kind, I'll post the pictures.