Ellie - Two year old granddaughter and unpaid model for this weeks post

Friday Photography

This week is all about different focal lengths and how they affect how a photograph looks. Sometimes its best to get really close to the subject and others it is better to have some distance in between.

This weeks assignment is: People

Please post any photos, comment about anything or ask any questions about photography (If I don’t know the answer someone here probably will)- Please treat this as a photography (and anything else for that matter) open thread.

Go wide or go long

Most cameras now have the ability to zoom in or out. Sometimes we have no choice as to whether we ‘go far’ i.e. zoom out as far as possible or ‘go wide’ get in as much of a scene as possible. A bird in a tree would generally require the first approach while getting a whole room in an image would require the second.

There is a bit more to the zooming thing than this though and there are many occasions where the photographer gets to make a choice and the decision can really impact the way a photograph looks. In this post I want to look at a couple of these differences.

Going Long

Obviously this makes things that are further away seem nearer. There is another less obvious effect though - the further that a lens is zoomed out the more compressed the image appears to be. This causes the final image to appear flattened.

This flattening of an image does something interesting. It makes the photographer seem detached from the subject of the photograph - not a part of the action so to speak. This is not always a bad thing. If, for example, a photograph of a person alone with their own thoughts is required then a long lens is the answer. Using a long lens also means that the photographer does not have to encroach into the subject’s personal space and this really helps when detachment is required.

Longish lenses are also best for formal (as opposed to candid) portrait work. They generally make faces look better and they make the blurring of the background easier. If you've ever wondered why it is really hard to make someone look good with an iPhone this is a part of the reason (Camera phones tend to be wide angle).

This was shot from around 30 yards away and Ellie was in her own world - it was important that she was not aware of me taking the photo.

Going Wide

As you have no doubt guessed the results of going wide are the opposite of those described above. A wide angle lens causes depth to appear to stretch and makes things further away appear very small. This is why mountains in the background tend to look very small and unimpressive, in many photographs compared to the way they appear in real life. Due to this apparent stretching of depth the viewer is pulled into the photograph. This causes the viewer to feel involved and is the opposite of the detachment facilitated by a long lens. The downside for more introverted photographers is that this means that they have to get in on the action themselves - the nearest part of the composition in a good wide angle shot is often just a couple of feet from the camera lens.

The apparent stretching of depth and resulting distortion is one of the reasons why it is hard to take flattering portraits with a wide angle lens.

This is the opposite of the previous photo. Ellie is about two feet from the camera and the interactions are all important. A photograph like this, that pulls the viewer into the scene, is not possible with a telephoto (long) lens.

Going Normal

This is where a focal length is being used that is neither wide nor long and supposedly roughly equates with the way the human eye sees the world. Characteristic wise it falls between the properties of the types of lens already discussed. Many photographers work with just this type of lens eschewing the distorted view of the world that the others provide. These are the real purists of the photography world.

[video:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1kAVGQvYGEw] This is a really good explanation with enough detail but not too much imo. It explains the connection between the focal length and the angle of view along with what all those numbers that usually end with mm mean. The presenter uses detachable lenses but the exact same principles apply to fixed zoom lenses on compact cameras.

Assignments

Last weeks assignment - indoors

Photographs and comments

This weeks assignment - people

Groups, crowds, individuals, family, strangers anything at all with a warm body in it somewhere.

Where to post images

I'll put up a new thread tomorrow, around noon ET, specifically for the uploading of photos relating to the assignment. If you want to post them here and/or on tomorrow's thread that is fine.

Finally

When you photograph people in color, you photograph their clothes. But when you photograph people in Black and white, you photograph their souls

-Ted Grant
This is an open thread so have at it. Post photos, questions, thoughts etc. - anything whatsoever to do with photography or anything at all for that matter.