Why do camera pictures look different than what I see?

Question

This may come off as a grade school kind of question and there might be a simple answer but, I'm always full of questions and this particular question has been racking my brain! I was wondering when I take a picture why do I appear to look different than mirror image? Is it because in reality I view myself the way I want to see myself? Is it the camera and it's quality? or is it because reality is better looking than a snap shot image? It's hard to explain exactly what I am asking but basically it just seems my camera shot looks distorted or off compared to what I look like in the mirror...you know? And another possibly silly question, is there any explaination to explain if what I see myself as is what other people see me as, as well? Or does it have to be a personal like kind of thing, such as I think I'm pretty but if someone else isn't interested in certain appearence qualities of mine will they view me differently than what I see? best way I can explain it. Thanks for any comments

by reality I mean a persons' glow, their realisticness, the atmosphere they create around themselves, the twinkle in ones eyes, I.E when a person goes tanning the shiny look, or when a person is happy their eyes may be lighter or when mad darker...the part of reality that makes seeing someone in person REAL rather than a snap shot on a camera that seems lifeless...not the real warm color of a persons face or body, the lack of twinkle in ones eye..etc. hope that explains it.


FYI : the camera I'm referring to is a Kodak DX3900 3.1 megapixel I looked this camera up and it said the lens was 2x 35-70mm what does this mean? what is the exact lens type?

Answer 1

That’s a very good question. Socrates, Plato and Leonardo DaVincci would be proud of you.

First it’s a mix of physic, biology and human perception. First the world is 3D, pictures are 2D (a flat interpretation of a 3D world); a picture of an apple is not an apple is a representation, it can be better or worst than the original but it will never be identical to the real thing, not even color can be accurately match. Your two eyes gather information and your brain tells you how a 3D world looks like from a human point of view.

Lenses, camera equipment and lighting modify image at great degree. Compare a close-up portrait with a 24mm, 50mm, 75mm, and 135mm. Each one will make you look very different, 24mm will be the worst, but 135mm will make you look better. Lighting! A frontal flash will make you look like a flat face cut-out; professional studio lighting or a natural light setting will make you look like a movie star. And a picture from a disposable camera cannot be compared to one from a professional art-of-the-state modern camera. Answering about your camera; 35-70mm means focal length (that is the zoom; far and close-up; go from 35, 36,37mm…..until 70mm; you got the idea?), 2X is the optical magnification (X means how many times the image is magnified) This is covering the technical part of you question.

For you other part of your question, you want to know if people sees you the way you see yourself; probably not, unlike cameras our eyes are not high tech equipment, we gather information thru them but our brain decides how to interpret that information based on our experience, cultural background, mood, health, believes, environment and human condition. I’m sure some people find you attractive but others not. It’s the same with ourselves we have a mental image of ourselves (good or bad), a print picture is not identical to our mental image just because is a different form to see the world. If you look ugly in a picture may be is not that you are ugly, maybe is just a bad photographer, camera and lighting combination. Reality is in our minds; a picture is not the real world, it is just a limited and distorted representation of it.

Have you noticed that movie actors and TV people look different in person? That’s because we create a mental image of them based on the perfectly retouched photos and images we see of them in the media; some actor hate when we think of them as perfect because that’s a great pressure and some of them don’t like their own pictures. May be what we call real world is just a matter of personal perception, and there is no one reality but many different ones: what I think is real, what you think is real and what other people think is real. That’s why gorgeous girls call themselves fat or ugly, and make rich those plastic surgeons; they think that it is their reality. There are thing that we can universally agree that are real, like the fire is hot, and the sky is blue, but beauty, good and bad are not among them. Every one see the world and other people the way they learned to see them. That’s why no body agrees when people say that some guy or girl is attractive or not. every one sees something different. The most important thing is the way you see yourself in the mirror; if you think you are good or attractive in your own special way, people around you feel that confidence and you make them see you the way you want to be seen.

Answer 2

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Answer 3

The psychology part, I'm gonna avoid coz I don't know. The photo part could be a lot of things.

The lens: each focal length has a different perspective, ie the lens doesn't see what you do. If you are using a wide angle lens, say anything from 7 mm to 35 mm (assuming 35 mm camera), you can get a lot to little distortion if the lens is close up to the subject ( A 7mm lens will show the entire image circle). If you're shooting a landscape, everything will look very small and far away. A 50 mm lens is considered "normal" which if you take a picture say of yourself in a mirror, should resemble you quite closely, assuming the film is properly exposed, developed and printed. 80mm and above are telephoto lenses, which will make subjects further away appear closer and larger, and will also compress the space between objects in the image.

I'm not sure that reality looks better than film, define reality.

peace,

Answer 4

The human eye has a focal length of 17mm. Too look at a photo from a 17mm (known as a wide angle lens) looks distorted, and stretched. 35mm is a very typical focal length to use in a camera, because of the minimal distortion. Different brands of lenses are also known to have certain distortion associated with them. Many professional photographers use 'fixed' lenses, that do not zoom like the lenses you probably would think of today, because zoom lenses tend to cause stretching and distortion, especially around the corners. -The stretching is in fact so predictable that high end photo editing softwares like Photoshop and Lightroom have 'automatic lens distortion' filters, undoing what the lens has distorted.

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Answer 7

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