Choosing the right perspective:
I was lucky enough to have the opportunity to gather with extended family recently when a number of us met up in Ft. Myers Beach, FL. I brought my camera to the beach one day for family beach portraits. I’ll share some of those photos soon, but today I wanted to talk about choosing the right perspective… in other words, Lens Choice.
I wasn’t sure whether to file this under Photography Tips, Why Hire A Professional Photographer, or even Before & After. I totally didn’t plan any of this, but after I looked at the photos taken by my mother using my camera, I saw a number of examples of what can happen when you aren’t aware of how lens choice will affect your photographs. So I thought I’d offer a few quick tips for all you shutter bugs on taking better portraits of your family and loved ones. And conversely, how to entertain you kids with bobblehead style photographs of themselves.
After a lovely long afternoon at the beach, I had some crazy wild curly beach hair. My mom loved it and wanted to photograph it. I took some test shots and made sure all the camera settings were dialed in before handing her my camera and giving her basic instructions on how to focus and release the shutter. She was happily snapping away while I laughed with her, fought the wind in my hair and enjoyed the semi-awkward, semi-exhilarating experience of being a shy person in front of a camera. She was wanting to take some close-up headshots and she was standing so close I started joking about how it felt like she was taking photos of my nose. She handed back the camera asking me to check and make sure the images looked ok.
The Bobble-head Effect: I took one look at the “nose” photo she had just taken and quickly realized why she was standing so close. She had the zoom lens set to its widest setting. This was perfectly fine when she was taking photos of me with whole beachscape in the background. Wide angle lenses are used for fitting more of the scene into your image. This is great when you want to take a photo in cramped quarters or to fit as much of a beautiful landscape as possible into your photograph. But when you photograph a person, especially close up, wide angle should be avoided at all cost. (Unless you are photographing a prepubescent boy and want to make them laugh. They may well love you for it.) I won’t get into the details of why, but wide angle lenses create distortion. Most notably, objects that are closer to the lens look disproportionately large. Like that “nose” photo I was talking about. I quickly twisted the zoom lens on my camera from 28mm (wide angle) to 70mm (medium angle) and handed the camera back to her. For reference, the human eye sees at about a 50mm focal length.
Fix # 1: Longer Focal Length: By using a longer focal length (75mm vs 28mm), you can get similar framing but with less distortion and you don’t have to stand so close to your subject.
You can see the results again here:
Fix # 2: Back Away and Include More of the Scenery: If all you have to work with is a wide angle lens, the best choice for taking a pleasing portrait is to have some distance between the camera and the subject. This will be more flattering to their face and keep them from looking overly distorted.
Take-away Tips:
Basic Level: If you have an adjustable zoom lens, it is better to zoom in vs zoom out before taking a close-up photo of someone. If you have to take a photo using a wider angle lens, (most phone cameras, etc have a fixed focal length lens that is somewhat wide angle), don’t get too close up or your loved one will look like a bobble head doll.
More Advanced: A general guideline to remember is that most people look their best in the 50mm-100mm focal length range.
P.S. A big thanks to mom for taking a number of beautiful photographs of me at the beach. It’s always a treat to be on the other side of the camera, both to have those photographs of myself and to remind myself what it feels like to be in front of the camera. Along the way, you also did a perfect job of taking illustrative photos of common pitfalls relating to lens choice, without even knowing it. xoxo ~ Sarah