Comments on: How Lens Focal Length Shapes the Face

By: John Cornicello

John Cornicello — Thu, 09 Aug 2012 04:38:00 +0000

Sorry, I need to disagree with the effect of focal length. It is distance. I’ve written about this a few times. One of them: http://blog.cornicello.com/2012/05/lens-compression.html

John

By: Thewirehead

Thewirehead — Thu, 09 Aug 2012 02:17:00 +0000

I would gladly pay if the content was worth it. Lets compare lens focal lengths. OK first 200mm; yeah looks nice the subject is framed nicely. Next, OK, lets look at 50mm; as you can see the subject hasn’t moved but more of the background is visible…

Stupendous. /sarcasm

By: Rich Meade

Rich Meade — Tue, 07 Aug 2012 14:05:00 +0000

Tell Platon that 50mm and 35mm are not attractive for portraits.

By: garrettgibbons

garrettgibbons — Tue, 07 Aug 2012 02:29:00 +0000

Jeff is correct. It’s the same image.

By: Jockemon

Jockemon — Mon, 06 Aug 2012 19:20:00 +0000

Must be hard for you to watch free high quality videos like this one from the comfort of your own home, without having to pay for a DVD or anything..

I don’t even get why they bother making these videos, it’s obviously nothing but commercials!

/sarcasm

By: Thewirehead

Thewirehead — Mon, 06 Aug 2012 03:18:00 +0000

How Lens (product placement) Focal Len(product placement)gth Shapes the Face(product placement) brought to you by (product placement, product placement, product placement).

By: Roman

Roman — Sun, 05 Aug 2012 21:18:00 +0000

Wladimir is correct on this subject. Try to change focal length with out changing distance to your subject. Then crop one picture to much other. The pictures will look identical. What changes perspective is fact that you have to change distance to your subject to maintain your composition.
And wedding photographers usually use distortion and perspective manipulation to make their clients “look the best” ;)

By: Chris Helton

Chris Helton — Sun, 05 Aug 2012 20:45:00 +0000

He even says it in the video, he could move away from her and it will look better but while keeping her face the same size in the frame it will distort. put a 50mm on a crop camera and you have to move further back. crop camera crops the outside of the lens at full frame. the distortion comes from the proximity to the edge of the frame. Think super wide angel, the center looks proper, but the stuff at the very edges is pulled and distorted. put that on a crop camera and it crops that out

By: Eric Gould

Eric Gould — Sun, 05 Aug 2012 19:39:00 +0000

I agree with Jeff. While distance will effect the perspective each lens has an inherit distortion/compression factor. A 50 mm on any sensor up close is not an attractive lens for portraits and a 35mm will distort even more. However, an 85mm – 135mm on any sensor looks good. I see lots of folks with 35mm and they wonder why the people always look “weird” even though the salesmen told it was like a 50mm on a cropped sensor – which makes me cringe on two counts… Ask any wedding photographer what they use to make their brides look the best. I love Jay’s video it helps so much with communicating a misunderstood topic – Go Jay!

By: Владимир Фельдман

Владимир Фельдман — Sun, 05 Aug 2012 17:34:00 +0000

It’s not about distortion but the perspective and perspective depends only from the relative distances from the camera to the different parts of the model’s body and face. So the picture shot with 40 mm at full-frame will be exactly the same as with 25 mm at 1.6 crop. It’s simple geometry.