Author Topic: Telephoto vs reality  (Read 1749 times)

Snoogly

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Telephoto vs reality
« on: January 26, 2021, 07:44:57 »
I think this counts as 'other'. I found it to be very interesting, and in these iPhone days it shows how important real lenses are - even if they do more harm than good.

https://mainichi.jp/english/articles/20210126/p2a/00m/0op/009000c
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Hugh_3170

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Re: Telephoto vs reality
« Reply #1 on: January 26, 2021, 09:21:12 »
A timely reminder of how focal length affects perspective.
Hugh Gunn

Birna Rørslett

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Re: Telephoto vs reality
« Reply #2 on: January 26, 2021, 09:50:48 »
Distance to subject affects perspective. Not focal length.

Hugh_3170

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Re: Telephoto vs reality
« Reply #3 on: January 26, 2021, 10:14:06 »
Correct.

Distance to subject affects perspective. Not focal length.
Hugh Gunn

Fons Baerken

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Re: Telephoto vs reality
« Reply #4 on: January 26, 2021, 11:40:38 »
Compression is the word i think often used in glamour and fashion photography to make the model stand-out slim against the background.

pluton

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Re: Telephoto vs reality
« Reply #5 on: January 26, 2021, 21:19:31 »
The compressed look---to photographers--- is one of the clichés of photojournalism. The general public, who, through the easy availability of smartphones, have learned the look of the wide angle lens, mixed light sources, and noisy low-light exposures will eventually become familiar with the telephoto compression effect, once it becomes commonly available on the phones. Hopefully, none of us will be tagged in social media as 'compression man'.
Keith B., Santa Monica, CA, USA

Akira

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Re: Telephoto vs reality
« Reply #6 on: January 26, 2021, 23:06:34 »
It is sad that this easy but otherwise artistic trick is (ab)used to betray people...
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MFloyd

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Re: Telephoto vs reality
« Reply #7 on: January 26, 2021, 23:43:15 »
Without tricks  ;) Try this with a smartphone ... ;D


_D607868.jpg
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David H. Hartman

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Re: Telephoto vs reality
« Reply #8 on: January 27, 2021, 02:32:07 »
For Western art if memory serves me Filippo Brunelleschi setup a demonstration of linear perspective in Florence Italy involving a church baptistry in about 1420. James Burk

One's point of view determines perspective with the camera and lens or the eye and brain.

Changing the focal length or sensor size changes the crop of the image.

Just for the hell of it I took a photo of my Toyota Truck with a 105/2.5 and 15/5.6 from the same vantage point. I made a 5x7" print from the 105/2.5 negative and then enlarged a small portion of the 15/5.6 image. Not the least surprising the perspective was identical. For those who don't believe or have too much time on their hands a digital version of this experiment should be easy to produce.

James Burk in The Day The Universe Changed series introduced me to Filippo Brunelleschi and his demonstration.

Dave
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David H. Hartman

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Re: Telephoto vs reality
« Reply #9 on: January 27, 2021, 02:44:42 »
Compression is the word i think often used in glamour and fashion photography to make the model stand-out slim against the background.

As with a 180/2.8, 200/2.0 or 300/2.8 lens? Also the background blurring where the background is well behind the subject is considerable blurred which isolates the model. As I understand the larger the lens' entrance pupil the greater the blurring when the background is well beyond the Dof zone.

I frequently make mention of the pleasing perspective one gets when cropping to a head and shoulders image of a person with a 105mm lens. I like to say the 105mm focal length suggests a working distance and therefore a natural perspective. Other focal lengths that suggest a pleasant perspective are 85mm, 90mm and 135mm.

Does any of this make sense or am I talking trash again?  :(

Dave
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Bill De Jager

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Re: Telephoto vs reality
« Reply #10 on: January 27, 2021, 23:00:06 »
One's point of view determines perspective with the camera and lens or the eye and brain.

Changing the focal length or sensor size changes the crop of the image.

In my experience on other sites, what trips up so many people is that for many casual photographers the crop affects where they choose to shoot from, which in turn determines the perspective.  I personally used to do this often before I learned better, and it's still something I need to watch.  I think decades of shooting slides encouraged me to shoot this way, since cropping of slides intended for projection is not simple in the way that digital cropping is.

So the focal length, on a practical basis, can affect the perspective indirectly. That shouldn't actually happen, because the photographer should understand all this and first choose a perspective before choosing a focal length.  If using primes, better to crop some afterwards and lose some resolution than to have a full-resolution perspective that doesn't do what you wanted it to do.

One thing that's tricky is that sometimes you can change perspective modestly to 'fill the frame' to an appropriate amount without altering the perspective in an undesirable manner, while other times you really do need to stand in a certain place to shoot a particular image you want even if the intended composition doesn't fill the frame.  Or you may want or need the initial photo out of the camera to be complete as is, for instance if quickly passing on a jpeg to others.

pluton

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Re: Telephoto vs reality
« Reply #11 on: January 27, 2021, 23:16:09 »

Just for the hell of it I took a photo of my Toyota Truck with a 105/2.5 and 15/5.6 from the same vantage point. I made a 5x7" print from the 105/2.5 negative and then enlarged a small portion of the 15/5.6 image. Not the least surprising the perspective was identical. For those who don't believe or have too much time on their hands a digital version of this experiment should be easy to produce.



I did this on digital (D800) a couple years ago. Items on table. Lenses: 28/35/50/85. Camera to table distance fixed.
Result:  Perspective identical from all lenses.  The more interesting part:  At identical aperture settings (f/4, I think it was), the blowups from the wideangles clearly had more depth of field than the shots from the longer 50 and 85mm.
Keith B., Santa Monica, CA, USA

pluton

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Re: Telephoto vs reality
« Reply #12 on: January 27, 2021, 23:35:16 »
Without tricks  ;) Try this with a smartphone ... ;D


_D607868.jpg
Right!---Even if they supplied a lens that long (I doubt they ever will), they'd still have the itty-bitty sensor image quality AND the terrible ergonomics/haptics of the phone-as-camera to deal with. 
Keith B., Santa Monica, CA, USA