15-862 Computational Photography

Project 0: The Vertigo Shot
by: Lisa Chan

Project Details:


The images for this project was captured with the Sony DSC-W1, as shown in the picture above. The animated gifs were created using Adobe ImageReady 3.0 with varying delay times between the images.
The challenges I faced with the first set of dolly zoom images was that the lighting was inconsistent as I moved, the alleyway was not flat, making it difficult to align the images; and it was very difficult to have my subject remain still. I placed a clear piece of plastic over my LCD screen to trace out the size of my subject, so that as I zoomed out, I could use it as a guide to see how far I have to move towards my subject. However, even with the trace, it was very difficult to realign the subject in every picture. The problem of alignment combined with the lack of images at every possible zoom, the transition of the images does not look smooth. Since having real people was such a difficult task, I changed the subject, and created a scenario using Playmobil figures instead, as shown in the second set of dolly zoom images. Now with the camera on my flat and even dining table, moving the camera while changing the zoom was much easier. In the last set of dolly zoom images, I changed the method, and moved the subject instead of the camera. Moving the subject was very difficult. Once again, I had employed the trace method, and still it was difficult to have the objects look the same between the images.


Dolly Zoom Images Set #1:

The first set of dolly zoom images were completed in the alleyway behind my apartment. The images were taken by zooming out while I moved the camera towards the subject.The animated gif image created with this set of images used a 0.2 seconds delay between the images. Since not enough images were taken between the zoom ratios, the transition between the images do not look very smooth.




Animated Gif:


Dolly Zoom Images Set #2:

I had created a scenario using Playmobil figures on my dining table. Because the table gave me a very flat and even surface, I was able to take more pictures using smaller zoom ratios. This set of images was taken by zooming in while I moved the camera away from the subject. The animated gif image was created using a 0.1 seconds delay between the images.




Animated Gif:


Dolly Zoom Images Set #3:

This is another scenario that I created with Playmobil figures on my dining table. This time, I had changed to zooming out while I moved the subject closer towards my camera. Moving the subjects while keeping them in the exact spot in the pictures was very difficult. As seen in the images below, sometimes I had accidentally changed the angle of the object my mistake. The animated gif image was created with 0 seconds of delay between the images.




Animated Gif:


Field of View Calculation:

Minimum Zoom
Maximum Zoom

The images were taken infront of my apartment, with the focus of the object being the trash can lid. The measurements are below:

The width of the trash can lid: 23 inches
Distance from camera to trash can at minimum zoom: 79 inches
Distance from camera to trash can at maximum zoom: 423 inches

From using the equation given in the second lecture, the field of view (FOV) can be calculated with FOV = arctan(d/2f).

At minimum zoom: FOV = arctan(38/(2x79)) = 8.28 degrees
At maximum zoom: FOV = arctan(38/(2x423)) = 1.58 degrees