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The only really interesting thing here that cameraphones have sort of pushed photography to use shorter focal lengths more often. Some photographers feel the sh

The only really interesting thing here that cameraphones have sort of pushed photography to use shorter focal lengths more often. Some photographers feel the shorter focal lengths feel "more authentic" somehow. Other than that, this looks like someone with a smartphone trying a little too hard to "do photography" yet not bothering to travel to a nicer venue.

dylan604 5y ago
I love using wide angle lenses, but yes, some of them have distortion that will make people look weird. You also need to know that you have to get super close to your subject to fill the frame for a traditional portrait framing. To check out a good example for a movie, watch The Frighteners of doing traditional close ups with wide angles. This allows for normal framing of your talent while giving lots of room in the frame for the background gags.
- falcrist 5y ago
  I'm not saying short lenses are necessarily bad, btw. I just think it's interesting that smartphones have had this effect.
psychomugs 5y ago
I'd argue that this started earlier, with the snapshot aesthetic pioneered by street photographers like Garry Winogrand and Daido Moriyama who often used wide <28mm lenses. The human field of vision is pretty wide at 120º, which equates to a ~12mm; wider is closer to what we "authentically" see. Then there's the obvious technical limitation of always being able to digitally zoom in but never out.
- falcrist 5y ago
  Shorter focal lengths have other purposes in street photography, where composing shots in crowded areas can be difficult or impossible with longer lenses like 85mm. In terms of which focal lengths produce perspectives that make the most sense to our eyes, people usually point towards 35-50mm lenses. Supposedly the formula is something like "focal length = diagonal measurement of the format".
  - psychomugs 5y ago
    I'm well-versed on the benefits of shorter lenses. Look through a "normal" lens (~42mm equiv) and you'll realize that it's actually nowhere near our field of vision (FOV), peripheral included. What a normal lens does is take a very narrow slice of our FOV and represent it neatly and proportionally, i.e. given two similarly framed portraits, a 40mm would make your nose look "normal" whereas a 28mm would make it look larger [1]. The shorter focal length dramatizes while also being closer to what we actually see; this wide perspective is why the two most venerable "street" cameras, the Ricoh GR and Leica Q, have fixed 28mm lenses. [1] https://www.vox.com/science-and-health/2018/3/1/17059566/plastic-surgery-selfie-distortion https://www.vox.com/science-and-health/2018/3/1/17059566/pla...
    - falcrist 5y ago
      I know how lens compression works. Though I specifically used the 35mm-50mm range because it depends on whether you take the diagonal directly, the diagonal of a square with edge length equal to the long edge of a 35mm sensor, or the diagonal of a square with edge length equal to the short edge of a 35mm sensor. Something in this range will produce an image that has a "normal" amount of compression. However, these lenses will obviously not produce a human field of view. In fact, AFAIK, you cannot reproduce the field of view of a human eye without pretty severe distortions. Your eyes aren't rectilinear, so using very short rectilinear lenses don't really get you any closer to how a human sees. This choice is therefor aesthetic.
      - psychomugs 5y ago
        Hence my persistent usage of 'closer;' no camera or lens will reproduce our eyes' field-of-vision or depth-of-field or color rendition exactly, but we can approximate them to the best of our technical capacity. Shooting wide-angle in color is aesthetically and objectively closer to what we (typically) see than a black-and-white telephoto picture.
        falcrist 5y ago
        > Shooting wide-angle in color is aesthetically and objectively closer to what we (typically) see than a black-and-white telephoto picture. I agree about color, but not focal length. Using very short focal lengths introduces highly distracting distortions. "Normal" focal lengths (35-50mm) are closer to what we experience, despite not having the wide field of view.

dylan604 5y ago

I love using wide angle lenses, but yes, some of them have distortion that will make people look weird. You also need to know that you have to get super close to your subject to fill the frame for a traditional portrait framing. To check out a good example for a movie, watch The Frighteners of doing traditional close ups with wide angles. This allows for normal framing of your talent while giving lots of room in the frame for the background gags.

falcrist 5y ago
I'm not saying short lenses are necessarily bad, btw. I just think it's interesting that smartphones have had this effect.

psychomugs 5y ago

I'd argue that this started earlier, with the snapshot aesthetic pioneered by street photographers like Garry Winogrand and Daido Moriyama who often used wide <28mm lenses. The human field of vision is pretty wide at 120º, which equates to a ~12mm; wider is closer to what we "authentically" see. Then there's the obvious technical limitation of always being able to digitally zoom in but never out.

falcrist 5y ago
Shorter focal lengths have other purposes in street photography, where composing shots in crowded areas can be difficult or impossible with longer lenses like 85mm. In terms of which focal lengths produce perspectives that make the most sense to our eyes, people usually point towards 35-50mm lenses. Supposedly the formula is something like "focal length = diagonal measurement of the format".
- psychomugs 5y ago
  I'm well-versed on the benefits of shorter lenses. Look through a "normal" lens (~42mm equiv) and you'll realize that it's actually nowhere near our field of vision (FOV), peripheral included. What a normal lens does is take a very narrow slice of our FOV and represent it neatly and proportionally, i.e. given two similarly framed portraits, a 40mm would make your nose look "normal" whereas a 28mm would make it look larger [1]. The shorter focal length dramatizes while also being closer to what we actually see; this wide perspective is why the two most venerable "street" cameras, the Ricoh GR and Leica Q, have fixed 28mm lenses. [1] https://www.vox.com/science-and-health/2018/3/1/17059566/plastic-surgery-selfie-distortion https://www.vox.com/science-and-health/2018/3/1/17059566/pla...
  - falcrist 5y ago
    I know how lens compression works. Though I specifically used the 35mm-50mm range because it depends on whether you take the diagonal directly, the diagonal of a square with edge length equal to the long edge of a 35mm sensor, or the diagonal of a square with edge length equal to the short edge of a 35mm sensor. Something in this range will produce an image that has a "normal" amount of compression. However, these lenses will obviously not produce a human field of view. In fact, AFAIK, you cannot reproduce the field of view of a human eye without pretty severe distortions. Your eyes aren't rectilinear, so using very short rectilinear lenses don't really get you any closer to how a human sees. This choice is therefor aesthetic.
    - psychomugs 5y ago
      Hence my persistent usage of 'closer;' no camera or lens will reproduce our eyes' field-of-vision or depth-of-field or color rendition exactly, but we can approximate them to the best of our technical capacity. Shooting wide-angle in color is aesthetically and objectively closer to what we (typically) see than a black-and-white telephoto picture.
      - falcrist 5y ago
        > Shooting wide-angle in color is aesthetically and objectively closer to what we (typically) see than a black-and-white telephoto picture. I agree about color, but not focal length. Using very short focal lengths introduces highly distracting distortions. "Normal" focal lengths (35-50mm) are closer to what we experience, despite not having the wide field of view.