On a smartphone, your lens options are more limited than they are with a DSLR. If you want a headshot, you’ll get better results with your smartphone’s telephoto lens (if it has one). The smaller the sensor, the more zoom (and the narrower field of view) you appear to get. Harry Guinness is a photography expert and writer with nearly a decade of experience. This kind of distortion is the source of that old adage that “the camera adds 10 pounds.”. World's biggest full size photo search. ", Think Tank Photo Black Friday Sale: Save Up to 40% on Select Products. As an Amazon Associate, I earn from qualifying purchases. Lenses are measured in focal length. The iPhone 11 Pro, for example, has the following three lenses: That’s a great selection of lenses for anything, barring sports or wildlife photography. All Rights Reserved. Black Friday Kelby One Training Deal – Save $50.00 (25%) on Pro Membership! Understanding what’s going on is important if you want to take better photos—especially since smartphones are now including more lenses. The effect is most obvious around my nose and eyes. The focal length tells you the field of view of any given lens. This is how almost all smartphone cameras, including the one on Apple’s iPhone 11 Pro, are marketed. I chose the same subject at the same spot with the same f-stop, same ISO & … Just understand that, as with almost everything in photography, there’s some serious simplification going on. There’s no need to go too deep to follow along. Here’s another taken with my iPhone’s 52mm lens. You weren’t imagining it. This site receives, Canon DSLR and Mirrorless Camera Sample Pictures, Adorama Deals of the Day Includes Capture One Pro 20 and a $25.00 Gift Card for Only $174.95, In Today's B&H Deal Zone: Peak Design Everyday Messenger 15" Version 1 – Half Price, Lensbaby, Vello Battery Grips, Sirui. Note that the car appears roughly the same width in each shot. That’s a photo of me. View quality sample pictures taken using various Canon, Nikon, and Sony DSLR and Mirrorless Interchangeable Lens Cameras & Lenses. How-To Geek is where you turn when you want experts to explain technology. See how the houses in the background appear much closer in the image below than they do in the normal shot (the first image in this section)? Why People Look Different in Photos Taken with Different Lenses Harry Guinness @HarryGuinness June 25, 2020, 6:40am EDT If you’ve ever taken a close-up portrait of someone with your smartphone’s wide-angle lens, you might have noticed they look a little . Broadly speaking, there are three kinds of lenses: Now that you’re up to speed on the basics of lenses, it’s time to talk about perspective. However, that doesn’t mean you can’t get great portraits with any lens. There are a couple of factors that affect how severe the distortion is: Wide-angle lenses aren’t ideal for close-up portraits. Before I continue to ramble, I will post some examples of images using different lenses. Conversely, a telephoto lens doesn’t just make objects appear larger; it’s an optical compression effect that makes things look like they’re closer together. In order to accurately depict the different in look & feel between the lenses I chose to use. A normal lens takes a photo that just looks normal. Join 350,000 subscribers and get a daily digest of news, comics, trivia, reviews, and more. Wide-angle lenses are far easier to use and more practical for common day-to-day photography. Maybe their nose seemed a bit big, or their face was just a tad too wide. The technical term for the ratio between the real and equivalent focal lengths is the crop factor. Join 350,000 subscribers and get a daily digest of news, geek trivia, and our feature articles. . There wasn’t anything physically different about your friend that day. By submitting your email, you agree to the Terms of Use and Privacy Policy. This is basically, how wide or zoomed-in your shot will be. So, what happens when you take a portrait of someone with a wide-angle lens? In the wide-angle shot, they appear bigger and more bulbous than they are in real life. How to Create and Manage To-Dos in WhatsApp Using Any.Do, © 2020 LifeSavvy Media. And it’s not just wide-angle lenses; every lens affects how people (and everything else) appear. What Does “ITT” Mean, and How Do You Use It? This weird distortion is just the effect wide-angle lenses have on photos of people. RELATED: How to Take a Good Portrait Photo. The camera and lens settings and the gear used for the displayed picture are provided for educational purposes. The field of view mostly matches what you see with your eyes. You don’t get a wider field of view without changing the perspective in other, subtler ways. Without the normal one to compare it to, it can be hard to explain exactly what’s wrong. . This site's image galleries not only show you the imagery that particular cameras and lenses are capable of, but will also inspire you to take your photography to a higher level. The shift in perspective also causes my head to look weirdly round and pinched. If a lens is described as having a “35mm” or “full-frame” equivalent, or just an “equivalent” focal length of 50mm, that means its field of view is similar to a 50mm when it’s used on a 35mm camera. Topax Labs Black Friday Sale: "Take advantage of the lowest price you’ll ever see for any Topaz products. Wide angle lenses are those with a short focal length, commonly ranging from … The following shots were all taken with a DSLR to get as much contrast as possible, but the same underlying things happen with the different lenses in your smartphone. Since we launched in 2006, our articles have been read more than 1 billion times. off. A gigantic telephoto lens might sound like a nice idea until you realize it would double the size of your phone. Below you will find some of my favorite pictures captured of a specific subject or location. . Distant objects appear smaller than they do in real life, while objects that are closer appear larger. Learn from the settings, lighting, and other considerations used for capturing these images. off. PixelPeeper lets you check sample photos at 100% zoom from any camera and lens. In reality, the field of view also depends on the size of the digital sensor (or piece of film) relative to the focal length of the lens. Because the lenses on a smartphone’s camera are built-in, there are some real physical constraints you have to manage. We’ve looked at some of the underlying physics before, so we’ll keep things practical here. Included along with the sample pictures are comments that describe aspects of the picture or the capture of it. . A wide-angle lens doesn’t just include more of a scene in a photo—it fundamentally changes the perspective. See how odd my face looks in that first shot? His work has been published in newspapers like The New York Times and on a variety of other websites, from Lifehacker to Popular Science and Medium's OneZero. In photography, the 35mm film and full-frame digital cameras are used as a standard reference when talking about focal length. For the purposes of this article, we’ll mostly be working with full-frame equivalent focal lengths. The above article may contain affiliate links, which help support How-To Geek. Why People Look Different in Photos Taken with Different Lenses, We’ve looked at some of the underlying physics before, including the one on Apple’s iPhone 11 Pro, the more zoom (and the narrower field of view), Don’t just blindly follow composition rules, How to Change the Theme and Accent Color of Instagram DMs, How to Record Shows and Movies on YouTube TV, How to Get Cycling Navigation Directions in Apple Maps.