Why do faces look distorted when photographed from a short distance (like 1.5 feet)?

Question

@tom: If it is the curvature of the lens - why are pictures from far distances (like 6 feet) not distorted. Also: Couldn't software compensate for this?

Answer 1

I've got a news bulletin for you and almost everyone else.

Faces photographed from a short distance DO NOT LOOK DISTORTED. They look the same as they look to the naked eye when viewed from that distance.

Try this with a close friend.

Stand with your face 18 inches away. Close one eye. Stare at your friend's nose. DO NOT MOVE YOUR EYE AROUND, as this lets your brain compensate for the distortion by "building a better view" of the face. Don't forget that the camera only has one "eye" and it doesn't move around. It captures one instant in time and that's it.

Part two of this experiment...

Take a photo of your friend from 18" away, using a 50 mm focal length if you are shooting 35 mm film or a full format digital SLR OR using a 35 mm focal length if you are using a typical APS or DX (etc) digital SLR. Print that photo as an 8x10 and then hold it 18" from your nose and look at it with one eye. It should look amazingly the same as your friend looked with your naked eye.

What's weird about these photos is that we might take then from 18" away, but we view them from a normal distance. We can not move our eye from place-to-place to gather more information when viewing a photo.

If you use a wide angle lens, there actually is distortion because the lens can see more from side-to-side than the human eye can see if you don't dart from side-to-side to "construct" that image in your brain. Not to mention... Most wide angle lenses will have some optical distortion anyway.

If you are using a point and shoot camera, odds are that you are pretty deep into the wide angle zone of the lens if you can focus on something from 18" away, so you have the added effect of actual distortion from the wide angle lens, as discussed by fhotoace.

Software CAN correct for barrel or pincushion distortion. Or, if you want to make your image seem like it was taken from 18" away, you can use the same tool to introduce some barrel distortion until it looks bad enough to you.

I'm going to "star" this question in hopes that a few more people will read this answer. What an ego...

Answer 2

Sam has a great answer, and deserves the points IMHO.

The only fact that I want to emphasize is that *perspective* is NOT impacted by your choice of lens. From 10ft away, the *perspective* distortion will be identical whether one uses a 16mm ultra-wide-angle or a 300mm telephoto, although the framing will be dramatically altered. This is why photographers don't typically shoot head shots with 300mm telephotos even if they have the necessary working distance: the perspective would cause the subject's features to be excessively flattened. The sweet spot is traditionally around 6ft for most portraits, where the subject is not overly distorted or flattened. This is not a hard-and-fast rule, but a useful guideline. Photographers will choose a focal length that will give them the desired framing of the subject (head and shoulders, 3/4, full body) within a range of distances (typically 4-10ft). Thus, we don't typically shoot full-body portraits with a 135mm even if that length is great for head-and-shoulders.

Lens distortion (barrel, pincushion, etc) is very different from perspective distortion, and IS impacted by lens choice. A fisheye image shot from 6 ft would NOT have perspective distortion, but WOULD have significant lens distortion (although less at the center of the frame). An image shot with a perfectly corrected 50mm lens at 1.5 ft WOULD have perspective distortion but would NOT have lens distortion.

Again, rules are made to be broken.... but the rules of photography exist for a reason, and should be fully understood before a decision is made to deviate from them. For instance, I may choose to take an environmental portrait with a telephoto lens to compress the background, but I am aware that I am trading a flattening of perspective on the subject in order to achieve this effect.

Answer 3

Sam gets my vote for giving the most comprehensible explanation.

Years ago, I studied this stuff, the math and the geometry. I was being introduced to using a view camera. Once I passed the written test, I reduced everything to one simple rule: Don't get too close with any lens and learn what too close is for any lens. Being the lazy person I am, I pretty much follow what other photographers do using the focal length lens I am using. I do break the 'rules' for specific effect, but it isn't by accident.

Sam mentions barrel and pincushion distortion. This is a distortion introduced by the optics and won't correct the type of distortion caused by getting too close to the subject. There are wide angle lenses that have so little barrel or pincushion distortion that you can ignore it, but if you get to close with them, you've sailed on the same boat again.

Vance

Answer 4

because you cant take portraits close up ON ANY CAMERA WITH ANY LENS.

if you want close up portraits, get a zoom and step back to 5 or 6 feet-you will get normal photos.

if youre too close it will ALWAYS distort features, namely the nose or forehead. it has nothing to do with lens curvature or lens aberation. stand back.

Answer 5

It's called "Focal Distortion"
Here's a great site that explains it in way better detail that I could...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Perspective_distortion_(photography)

Answer 6

they arent when i shot them, i use 50mm - 105mm,

wide angles at that distance will distort the persons face,

as for software...........well great images are made in camera and not "fixed" using software

a

Answer 7

This is called perspective. You can apply some correction but it is better to stand back and then take a photo.

Answer 8

curvature of the lense

Answer 9

idk, what the kind of camera are u using> sounds like low pixels