Originally posted by pingflood "3d effect" is hard to qualify, but I will say that in *my opinion* Zuiko glass on a large sensor tends to produce it with higher frequency than anything else I've used.
Great shot Pingflood! Looking at it, I'm in agreement with a lot of what arpaagent says. I think your photo achieves the 3d effect due to:
1 - sharp focus of the subject
2 - blurriness, but not excessive blurriness of the background
3 - brighter exposure of subject (did you use fill flash?)
I'm not yet convinced that certain lenses have special pixie dust that gives them magical 3d powers. Yes, the number of aperture blades may make a subtle difference, and faster lenses maybe create more opportunities to separate the subject from the background "just right", but I think the 3d effect is more dependent upon the situation and the skill of the photographer.
Here, for evaluation, I submit a photo taken with the K-x and a kit lens. Not nearly as nice as yours, but it demonstrates that you can achieve a 3d effect with a kit lens:
Exposure: 0.013 sec (1/80)
Aperture: f/5.0
Focal Length: 30.6 mm
ISO Speed: 3200
One of the neat things about the high ISO capabilities of the K-x is that you have more latitude in selecting an aperture in low light situations - you don't have to worry about noise at smaller apertures/higher ISOs. If I were taking this shot with my K20d, I would have had to worry about high ISO noise more and probably opened up the aperture a couple of stops (F2.8 or F3.2) in order to keep the ISO somewhere around 800. I would have gotten the shot but might have lost some of the 3d effect in the process due to excessive blurring of the background.
I suggest others submit other 3d photos for evaluation as well. This is an interesting subject.