I have used three cameras to capture these images: 1) a Canon EOS 10S 35 mm camera, usually with the 50 mm f 2.5 macro lens (with and without the extension tube).  The resulting slides are scanned with a Nikon Super Coolscan 4000 slide scanner, 2) a Nikon Coolpix 4500 4 megapixel digital camera, usually using the macro settings, and 3) a Canon EOS 30D Digital SLR camera, usually using the same 50 mm macro lens I use on the 10S

       Two separate images are taken, the second after moving the camera laterally through an circular angle around the object (as the circle’s center) of about 4 degrees (equivalent to about 2 1/2 inches at three feet and something less as the camera approaches the object).  Care is taken to have the center foreground in the same position in the viewfinder and that the two images are registered vertically.  To help insure this registration, I use a sliding stage on a Benbo Low Boy tripod.  Rarely, when a flash is used with the Canon cameras, I make sure the angle of the flash onto the object is the same for both views (by attaching the flash to the tripod, not the camera).  In any case it is important that the lighting is the same in the two views.  The low-light capabilities of the digital cameras make it usually unnecessary to use the flash with them.

       I have used a variety of films but have consistently better results with fine grain, warmer "chrome" films, like Kodachrome.  The advantage of using the 35 mm camera and slide is that the final images have much higher resolution, and I can project the slides and give presentations (using cross-polarized filters and appropriate glasses).  Unfortunately, chrome films are difficult to scan and digitize completely accurately and often the colors of greens are not accurate (despite my fiddleing) and some ghosting appears on the margins of lighter subjects in darker images.

        The left and right JPG files are combined into one (JPS file) with the excellent program, StereoPhotoMaker written by Masugi Suto.  This facilitates adjusting the two images so they are precisely aligned and provides many other editing features.  The resulting JPS file has been converted to a Stereoviewer Card format JPG file by Pokescope Professional Version 2.6 (http://www.pokescope.com/). This program also allows considerable flexibility in combining the two images, but is not quite as easy to use for these purposes than StereoPhotoMaker.  

      The original JPS files allows the images to be viewed in several different stereo format by a variety of plug-ins and other programs (see here for a short list of presently available programs).