Foreshortening
Purpose: To demonstrate how increasing how the lens-to-subject distance affects perspective.
Lens 50 (f5.6, 1/640, ISO 640)
Lens 24 (f 5.6, 1/640, ISO 640)
Lens 105 (f5.6, 1/640, ISO 640)
Reflection: The 50 mm is most realistic. This is how I saw the subject. The 24 mm widens the facial features and you can see a curve in the building in the background. The subject appears closer. A very unflattering distortion of the face. At 105 mm The subject is more focus and the background building appears closer than it actually is. (Only an understanding sister would submit to this exercise. Very grateful:) ). I like the way the subject’s facial features look in the 50 mm shot best. However, the 105 mm isn’t bad as the subject pops from the background and is not badly distorted.
Compressing Perspective
Purpose: To demonstrate how increasing focal length compresses the scale between foreground and background objects.
Image 1: Lens 47 mm (f4, I/50, ISO 250) 10 feet from object in the foreground. *meant this to be 50mm
Image 2: Lens 50 mm (f4, 1/50, ISO 250) 5 feet from object in the foreground.
Image 3: Lens 50 mm (f4, 1/50, ISO 250) 2.5 feet from object in the foreground.
Note: When you use your feet to zoom, foreground and background elements retain the same relative size and spatial relationship to one another.
Part 2 - Zoom Lens
Standing in one spot and moving the lens in and out
Image 4: Lens 50, f4, 1/50, ISO 250)
Image 5: Lens 70 (f4, 1/50, ISO 250)
Image 6: Lens 105 (f4, 1/50, ISO 250)
Note: Standing in one spot and zooming the lens in or out, crops the photo in the camera. Doing this magnifies everything in the image equally, so the foreground and background objects enlarge proportionally. The result is what is known as compressing or flattening perspective.
Reflection: This is the first time that I have used my 24-105 mm zoom lens since June. I decided to put that lens away and to only use the 50 mm lens for the summer. The goal was to really see what was possible with a 50 mm to really get in the habit of foot zooming. At first I was frustrated but eventually I found myself really loving the way the images looked. (Besides my camera was so much lighter and I felt less obvious when taking photos). I never really looked at the differences between foot zooming and zooming with my zoom lens until this exercise. I saw the difference most clearly in images 3 and 6 above. Both could work but if there was a need to have more of the school in the background visible for context then 3 would win over 6. Also sometimes I won’t want the compressed perspective of the zoom in a scene thus will go for the 50mm.