5 ms·

I'm arguing that wide angles are only more representative if you use fisheye distortion and project the image onto a curved media. If you're using flat media a

I'm arguing that wide angles are only more representative if you use fisheye distortion and project the image onto a curved media. If you're using flat media and rectilinear optics, shorter lenses get progressively less and less representative of human vision. > the photographer and photograph are telling you what to look at. This is always true at every focal length. Your choice of composition informs the viewer whether it's a wide angle shot or super-telephoto. > ...wide lenses are so useful and popular for documentary and snapshot purposes because they record more of the elements... Shorter lenses do incorporate more into the image. That doesn't make them more or less representative of human vision.

psychomugs 5y ago
> If you're using flat media and rectilinear optics, shorter lenses get progressively less and less representative of human vision. Below ~12mm, yes. 28mm is still a compromise between field of view and usability; even with a 21mm, I have to be right in front of someone for them to fill the frame, because I would have to do the same if I were looking at them with my own eyes. > This is always true at every focal length. Your choice of composition informs the viewer whether it's a wide angle shot or super-telephoto. "Lately I’ve been struck with how I really love what you can’t see in a photograph." - Diane Arbus. Photography, with its receptiveness to stream-of-conscious approach and synchronous rearing with postmodernism, is an inherently subjective medium. Joel Meyerowitz, on his use of wide angle lenses, terms the explicit look-at-this approach as 'collecting' [1]. There are subgenres dedicated to not collecting, introducing ambiguity that invites the viewer to form their own interpretation of the recorded reality. I took a walk this afternoon and looked at a tree ~5m away. I could visualize framing the trunk of the tree with a 50 or 75mm, but also noticed a child running towards the tree. The childless telephoto perspective would've been a more accurate representation of my subjective experience of focusing on the tree, but an objectively less accurate representation of what I was actually seeing in my field of vision. A tree-only photo tells you to look at the tree, whereas a wider perspective invites you to consider the relationship between the disparate elements. Meyerowitz also waxes poetically about this [ibid]. Again, the Ricoh GR and Leica Q, the most popular dedicated street/documentary cameras, have 28mm lenses, and the Fujifilm X100 a 35mm. Essentially all of the street photographers I've met internationally use either a 28mm or 35mm most of the time. There is a visceral you-are-right-there-in-the-moment feeling from looking at a wide angle photograph, especially when printed large, that simply cannot be reproduced with a normal-telephoto. [1] https://youtu.be/Xumo7_JUeMo?t=154 https://youtu.be/Xumo7_JUeMo?t=154
- falcrist 5y ago
  > 28mm is still a compromise between field of view and usability Which is what I'm saying. It's a compromise, rather than trying to match human vision. > "Lately I’ve been struck with how I really love what you can’t see in a photograph." - Diane Arbus. There is no focal length that doesn't involve a choice about what the viewer can see. There's always composition. You're always making a choice.
  - psychomugs 5y ago
    And yet, as I've argued with objective statements re: field of view and subjective experience from others and myself, we use these wide angles because they are objectively and subjectively closer to matching our human vision. Once you get to a certain level, you can begin to make choices that invites the viewer to make a choice, and realize that your choices are only ever second to theirs. Wider lenses are more effective at this specifically because they gather more elements in the frame, inducing more ambiguity and opportunity for alternative interpretations, just like how we always have to decide where our cone of attention points. Stopping short of advising you to touch grass, I'd invite you to shoot exclusively with wides and fisheyes for a while, and practice soft focus for peripheral awareness [1]. Apart from that, no argumentation on photography through the limited medium of text is going to reconcile our perspectives. [1] https://www.victoriastellatoskeet.com/blog/at-home-eye-exercises-to-improve-soft-focus https://www.victoriastellatoskeet.com/blog/at-home-eye-exerc...
    - falcrist 5y ago
      Except due to distortions and perspective differences, shorter focal lengths are objectively further from matching human vision. Subjects regularly look much further from the camera than they actually are. Objects at the edge of the frame are weirdly stretched. Whatever is closest to the camera will appear disproportionately large in your final image. Objects in the background are disproportionately small. Not to mention barrel distortions tend to be much more prominent as focal length is shortened. Normal focal lengths are the closest to human vision. Wide angle fisheye lenses could be ok with curved media, but otherwise they're just warped. Considering the area of focus of human vision, along with the fact that we don't see in rectilinear terms, trying to reduce all the aspects of human vision to one factor: field of view... seems foolish at best. If we viewed photos in some kind of spherical VR space or on curved media, then wider field of view with a fisheye lens could be argued to be more similar to human vision. However, we almost exclusively view pictures as flat sheets of paper or flat rectangular screens. For those reasons and others, 35-50mm is far more similar to actual human vision. https://petapixel.com/2012/11/17/the-camera-versus-the-human-eye/ https://petapixel.com/2012/11/17/the-camera-versus-the-human... Composition (and thus the number of elements in frame) is a choice that gets made by the photographer, and can be achieved by altering the scene, changing distance, or changing focal length. Having more or fewer elements in frame has nothing to do with mimicking human vision, and whatever focal length you've chosen is a decision you're making for the viewer. If you make a 360° photo, that's still a composition decision you're making on behalf of the viewer, and it directly effects how they consume your work. Now, if you want your image to be a wider angle, that's fine. That is a legitimate compositional choice... but it is a choice that you the photographer are making. It's not better or worse. Nor is trying to be "closer to human vision" inherently better or worse than any other choice. Knock yourself out with whatever focal lengths suit you.

psychomugs 5y ago

> If you're using flat media and rectilinear optics, shorter lenses get progressively less and less representative of human vision. Below ~12mm, yes. 28mm is still a compromise between field of view and usability; even with a 21mm, I have to be right in front of someone for them to fill the frame, because I would have to do the same if I were looking at them with my own eyes. > This is always true at every focal length. Your choice of composition informs the viewer whether it's a wide angle shot or super-telephoto. "Lately I’ve been struck with how I really love what you can’t see in a photograph." - Diane Arbus. Photography, with its receptiveness to stream-of-conscious approach and synchronous rearing with postmodernism, is an inherently subjective medium. Joel Meyerowitz, on his use of wide angle lenses, terms the explicit look-at-this approach as 'collecting' [1]. There are subgenres dedicated to not collecting, introducing ambiguity that invites the viewer to form their own interpretation of the recorded reality. I took a walk this afternoon and looked at a tree ~5m away. I could visualize framing the trunk of the tree with a 50 or 75mm, but also noticed a child running towards the tree. The childless telephoto perspective would've been a more accurate representation of my subjective experience of focusing on the tree, but an objectively less accurate representation of what I was actually seeing in my field of vision. A tree-only photo tells you to look at the tree, whereas a wider perspective invites you to consider the relationship between the disparate elements. Meyerowitz also waxes poetically about this [ibid]. Again, the Ricoh GR and Leica Q, the most popular dedicated street/documentary cameras, have 28mm lenses, and the Fujifilm X100 a 35mm. Essentially all of the street photographers I've met internationally use either a 28mm or 35mm most of the time. There is a visceral you-are-right-there-in-the-moment feeling from looking at a wide angle photograph, especially when printed large, that simply cannot be reproduced with a normal-telephoto. [1] https://youtu.be/Xumo7_JUeMo?t=154 https://youtu.be/Xumo7_JUeMo?t=154

falcrist 5y ago
> 28mm is still a compromise between field of view and usability Which is what I'm saying. It's a compromise, rather than trying to match human vision. > "Lately I’ve been struck with how I really love what you can’t see in a photograph." - Diane Arbus. There is no focal length that doesn't involve a choice about what the viewer can see. There's always composition. You're always making a choice.
- psychomugs 5y ago
  And yet, as I've argued with objective statements re: field of view and subjective experience from others and myself, we use these wide angles because they are objectively and subjectively closer to matching our human vision. Once you get to a certain level, you can begin to make choices that invites the viewer to make a choice, and realize that your choices are only ever second to theirs. Wider lenses are more effective at this specifically because they gather more elements in the frame, inducing more ambiguity and opportunity for alternative interpretations, just like how we always have to decide where our cone of attention points. Stopping short of advising you to touch grass, I'd invite you to shoot exclusively with wides and fisheyes for a while, and practice soft focus for peripheral awareness [1]. Apart from that, no argumentation on photography through the limited medium of text is going to reconcile our perspectives. [1] https://www.victoriastellatoskeet.com/blog/at-home-eye-exercises-to-improve-soft-focus https://www.victoriastellatoskeet.com/blog/at-home-eye-exerc...
  - falcrist 5y ago
    Except due to distortions and perspective differences, shorter focal lengths are objectively further from matching human vision. Subjects regularly look much further from the camera than they actually are. Objects at the edge of the frame are weirdly stretched. Whatever is closest to the camera will appear disproportionately large in your final image. Objects in the background are disproportionately small. Not to mention barrel distortions tend to be much more prominent as focal length is shortened. Normal focal lengths are the closest to human vision. Wide angle fisheye lenses could be ok with curved media, but otherwise they're just warped. Considering the area of focus of human vision, along with the fact that we don't see in rectilinear terms, trying to reduce all the aspects of human vision to one factor: field of view... seems foolish at best. If we viewed photos in some kind of spherical VR space or on curved media, then wider field of view with a fisheye lens could be argued to be more similar to human vision. However, we almost exclusively view pictures as flat sheets of paper or flat rectangular screens. For those reasons and others, 35-50mm is far more similar to actual human vision. https://petapixel.com/2012/11/17/the-camera-versus-the-human-eye/ https://petapixel.com/2012/11/17/the-camera-versus-the-human... Composition (and thus the number of elements in frame) is a choice that gets made by the photographer, and can be achieved by altering the scene, changing distance, or changing focal length. Having more or fewer elements in frame has nothing to do with mimicking human vision, and whatever focal length you've chosen is a decision you're making for the viewer. If you make a 360° photo, that's still a composition decision you're making on behalf of the viewer, and it directly effects how they consume your work. Now, if you want your image to be a wider angle, that's fine. That is a legitimate compositional choice... but it is a choice that you the photographer are making. It's not better or worse. Nor is trying to be "closer to human vision" inherently better or worse than any other choice. Knock yourself out with whatever focal lengths suit you.