In many situations, for the image to appear realistic requires a virtually infinite depth of field – or a hyper-focal image – as the 3-D nature of the image tells the eye/brain that it can chose to look and focus where it chooses, and an out of focus area of the image obviously prevents this, again causing the suspension of disbelief, as well as causing the aforementioned headaches due to the brain being told one thing, while the eye sees something else.

Foreground objects being out of focus are worse than the background in this respect.

In the above image the more narrow depth of field on the foreground has thrown the background out of focus and means the eye can no longer view the image as being truly stereoscopic.

This can be a problem as it can break the suspension of disbelief, although it can be used to guide the audience to specific locations within the image...

Next Page - Viewing Distance

As always, test before committing to a particular style of stereoscopic 3-D shooting.

Or better still, contact steve@lightillusion.com for more info.