Beginner placement of subject

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Jonas33

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Name
Jonas
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Hello,

Very new to photography here and have a basic question that I cant seem to find any answers to online.
When I take pictures of a person and that person is standing in the center of the shot instead of 2/3 to the right for example, that person appears much more slimmer.
Why is it that placing a person on the middle of a photo makes him/her look slimmer than just to the side? Which is the "true image"?

Currently testing with iPhone 26mm.

thanks!

Jonas
 
Can't say I've ever experienced that. The only thing I can think of is that you're using a lens with a lot of peripheral distortion, if that's the right term.
 
simon ess said:
Can't say I've ever experienced that. The only thing I can think of is that you're using a lens with a lot of peripheral distortion, if that's the right term.
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thanks for the reply, im using the standard 26mm iPhone 13 lens.
 
Has it been reported or discussed that the iPhone 13 camera lens has peripheral distortion abnormalities or diffusion characteristics Jonas?
 
Your lens gives a wide angle of view and distorts anything near the edge of the frame. This is normal behaviour with a wideangle lens.
 
Jonas33 said:
Ok would love for someone that has this experience to comment, thanks!
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We’ll the first answer is correct.
That lens is far from optically ‘correct’ and what you’re experiencing would be a result of distortion. The other considerations would be the angle between the ‘camera’ and subject.

To make people look ‘attractive’ the general rule for photographers is to use a short to medium telephoto lens. We’d (again generally) only use a wide angle lens to photograph people if what we wanted was to take advantage of the ‘different’ perspective.

It’s possible to enjoy photography with an iPhone, but you have to see it for what it is, it’s a wide angle camera, that’s fairly poor in low light and the instant you start adding any ‘effects’ you’re using the inbuilt computer to use AI to approximate what the laws of physics give a photographer.

My advice would be to pick up a real camera and a short telephoto lens, and see the difference in the results. It’ll be a challenge to begin with, as you swap out your phone ‘doing it for you’ but eventually you’ll get results the phone never could.
 
If you have a row of cylinders and shoot them with a wide angle lens so as they fill the frame the outside ones will be slightly wider than the centre ones. To do the same with a long focus lens you would have to be much further away. And there would be little difference between their sizes. The drawing all depends on the view point. Most camera lenses are rectilinear and produce a geometrically correct perspective. So the same effect would be produced in an accurate three point architectural drawing from the same viewpoints.

In reality our eyes and brains make considerable adjustments to what we see, to match what we expect to see, so without visual training we do not notice such things.
 
Thanks for all the wonderful replies, that really helped, and yes looking to get my first "real" camera.

Is it fair to say that the lower mm the lens is the narrower the subjects face will be, as in the example below? In this image, I assume that his "real" appearance is the one with the 200mm lens (wider face than 15mm). In other words, the iPhone with its 24mm wide angle lens will therefore make the subjects face thinner/narrower than reality?


Thanks again.

Jonas

maxresdefault.jpg
 
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Jonas33 said:
Thanks for all the wonderful replies, that really helped, and yes looking to get my first "real" camera.

Is it fair to say that the lower mm the lens is the narrower the subjects face will be, as in the example below? In this image, I assume that his "real" appearance is the one with the 200mm lens (wider face than 15mm). In other words, the iPhone with its 24mm wide angle lens will therefore make the subjects face thinner/narrower than reality?


Thanks again.

Jonas

maxresdefault.jpg
Click to expand...
No: that’s a really bad example. Im not even sure it’s correct.

Perspective is a function of subject distance, as per Terry’s example.

To get the same subject coverage you need to be closer w a wide angle lens (lower mm no’s) and further with a longer lens (higher no) ergo the longer lens is more flattering. As perspective is flattened.

No one needs to look like they have a big nose and deeper eye sockets.
 
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