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Old 05-02-15, 11:45
sqw sqw is offline
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Join Date: Feb 2015
Location: cheltenham
Posts: 6
Default Why 50mm will ruin your face

In my post yesterday, some people were having trouble seeing what I was getting at with the full length figures, so here is a better example, concentrating on just a head shot.

http://www.filmphotoacademy.com/blog...e105_thumb.jpg

This is shot at 105mm – everything is well proportioned – she looks human

http://www.filmphotoacademy.com/blog...e070_thumb.jpg

This is shot at 50mm and the proportions are drifting off – by comparing the two images you can see that things are not right at this focal length.

http://www.filmphotoacademy.com/blog...e024_thumb.jpg

And to take it to the extreme – this is 24mm – obviously the distortions are greatly exaggerated – but the 50mm is still showing the same distortion just not as strongly.

The reason for this is not a distortion in the lens, but a perspective distortion. It's caused because nearer objects will always appear larger in the frame. So, when you use a shorter focal length, in order to achieve the same crop you have to move the lens closer to the subject.
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