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How Perspective Affects Your Photos

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Ansel Adams once said, “A good photograph is knowing where to stand.” But, before you know where to stand, it’s important to understand a few concepts about perspective.

I’ve written about perspective here on PhotoNaturalist a few times, but I’ve also written a couple posts about it over at the Digital Photography School (a great blog that covers all types of photography). And, one of those posts was just published today, so I thought it’d be good to put a list together of all the posts I’ve written about perspective: [Read more…] about How Perspective Affects Your Photos

Understanding Perspective and Focal Length

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Image by SharkD / Used under the GFDL
In photography, there’s a common misconception that focal length determines the perspective of an image, but the only thing that really determines perspective is where you put the camera.

For example, the telephoto lens is often said to “compress” your scene and make everything look flat. But, it’s not the focal length that’s doing this. It’s actually because you’re so far from the scene you’re photographing (which is how telephoto lenses are commonly used: to photograph something far away). And, it’s because of this great distance that the scene looks “flat” in the final image.

As you move farther and farther away from something, you lose visual depth. For example, if you stare at someone’s face when you’re only a foot away from them, you’ll be able to see all the curves of their face pretty clearly, but as you step farther away from them, their face will begin to look “flat.” [Read more…] about Understanding Perspective and Focal Length