Stereoscopic Viewers

 

Stereoscopic viewers, or stereographs, are the viewing devices used in stereoscopy to give off beautiful 3D images off of double image stereoscopic cards. Place it up to your eyes in front of the card, adjusting the distance until the image jumps out at you.

Stereoscopic viewers, or stereographs, are the actual viewing devices used for stereoscopy. Stereoscopic viewers are typically handheld or boxlike viewers that are designed to properly align each eye to each image for the purpose of giving off a three dimensional view off the two dimensional cards, tintypes, daguerreotypes, ambrotypes, albumen prints, or lithographs. Since both images are seen from slightly different angles, as it is when our eyes focus on something in real life, they appear to have depth and are much more lifelike than standard 2D photos. For more information about the history and background of stereoscopy, see stereoscopic cards. Unless you can free-view, which is properly seeing stereoscopic cards without a viewer, you will need a stereoscopic viewer to keep your eyes aligned properly with the images.

 

There are many types of stereoscopic viewers. The earliest types were table models that were very bulky and boxy and with storage drawers, while as time progressed very ornate folding stereographoscopes and lighter and simpler hand-held viewers appeared. Many types of different stereographs were patented so each brand of stereoscopic viewer had different improvements, features, styles, designs, and materials.

 

For example, the Beckers-type stereoviewer was a large boxlike rotating viewer which held many stereoscopic cards inside. It has a focusing dial and rotating dials to switch the image being seen. Before that was Charles Wheatstone’s mirror stereoscope, the first made. The Holmes viewer is a common design. It was developed by Oliver Wendell Holmes and Joseph Bates in 1862 and became the world’s most popular stereograph at the time. There was Charles Rowsell’s stereographoscope, A. Mattey’s Star stereoscope, the Perry stereoscope, perfecscopes, rotoscopes, telebinoculars, coffin viewers (named for their covers), eye comfort stereoviewers, wood slide, cardboard, maps, and more. They were sold by companies like Sears and H.T. Anthony.

 

Some hand-held viewers have folding handles while others are one solid piece. Some stereoscopic viewers are all wood, while some are made of wood and metal. Some are bare and some are velvet lined. Some had folding eye shields, embossed paper hoods, round lenses, plain banjos, ornate banjos, or faint blindstamps for identification. The features were as varied as the personalities designing them and the subjects being photographed.

 

Stereoscopic viewers were very popular in the mid nineteenth century. Anaglyphs, View-Masters, Tru-Views and View-Magics became popular in the 1930s and later, but stereoscopy itself was dying out when the evolving print technology took hold in newspapers and magazines, and then motion pictures. Some of the older stereographs from the 19^th century are still available and functional.