> In my experience, which is limited to phone cameras and the like, they seem to produce realistic images at short ranges, but a landscape picture looks much sm

> In my experience, which is limited to phone cameras and the like, they seem to produce realistic images at short ranges, but a landscape picture looks much smaller and more distant than how the scene seems to me as I take it, unless I zoom in. That's another issue, not caused by different lens or physics but by how our brains interprets what it sees. Our brains pick up and zoom on details subconsciously (and "compress" the uninteresting background) so you remember the details "bigger" than they are in reality. That's why medieval cities on paintings have often towers twice the height compared to a photo of the same view. Same thing happens when you look at the Moon and then make a photo of it (without zooming). You have to zoom 2 or 3 times before it looks as big as "in reality".