How prespective changes the picture

The Camera image can seem surprisingly different from reality, so it is vital to see things the camera sees them. A long used far from a subject gives a so-called telephoto effect. In the photo opposite left, for example, the people and traffic seem impossibly compressed. A short lens used to close to a subject produces what is known as wide-angle distortion. Opposite right, it enlarges part of the humans form to unnatural proportions. These Photographs seem to show distortions in perspective.

Perspective is the way the brain judges depth in a two-dimensional representation.

Depth is perceived mostly by comparing the sizes of objects, so it seems to increase if foreground objects appear larger than background ones.

Perspective is affected by the lens-to-subject distance, not by lens focal length.

Moving your camera closer to a subject will make objects in the foreground larger relative to those in the background.

Below, the pictures in the top row were taken from the same distance with lenses of different focal lengths.

The shortest lens produces the widest view; the longest lens produces the narrowest view, but is simply an enlargement of the scene. The relative sizes of the eggs in the foreground and the bird remain constant because all three pictures were taken from the same distance.

The pictures in the bottom row were taken with the same lens from different distances.

The closer the lens came, the bigger the foreground objects (the eggs and nest) appear relative to the background one (the cage).

In only sense does the focal length of a lens affect the perspective.

A short lens can focus closer to an object than along lens, and it doesn’t eliminate most of the scene from view when you move in close. Consequently, a short lens can produce wide-angle distortion because it is easy to use it up close. A long lens can produce a telephoto effect because you are the more likely to shoot from relatively far away. But the lens isn’t creating the effect; the distances from the subject is doing so.

Source: photography by Barbara London, Jim Stone & John Upton