Portrait question

[J_T]

If I take a close -up picture of someone's face with my 18-55mm lens (Canon) with the focal length closer to the 55mm end, will the person's face be distorted much? (Would it make the face look wider?)

 

[Tiberius47]

If I take a close -up picture of someone's face with my 18-55mm lens (Canon) with the focal length closer to the 55mm end, will the person's face be distorted much? (Would it make the face look wider?)

No. The distortion comes from the fact that with wide angle lenses you need to be close to the person's face. With longer focal lengths, you can be further back, which means there is less distortion.

 

[J_T]

If I take a close -up picture of someone's face with my 18-55mm lens (Canon) with the focal length closer to the 55mm end, will the person's face be distorted much? (Would it make the face look wider?)

No. The distortion comes from the fact that with wide angle lenses you need to be close to the person's face. With longer focal lengths, you can be further back, which means there is less distortion.

Okay thanks. What if the camera was about an arms length away?

 

[cgipson1]

anything above 50mm is usually fine, as long as you don't get right up in thier face.... as in head and shoulders type shots..

 

[scorpion_tyr]

At 55mm you'll be fine. For a fun trick do a test shot. Zoom all the way in and take a picture of the person's face. Now make sure the person doesn't move, but you zoom all the way out and get closer so the head is the same in frame. Now take the picture. Look at the two side by side and you'll see a huge difference!

 

[Mike_E]

Yes, if you're too close. It's a question of distance more than focal length. See here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Perspective_distortion_(photography).


Note that some super wide angle lenses are just distorted.

 

[J_T]

Thanks guys. I'll keep that in mind while shooting

 

[Tiberius47]

If I take a close -up picture of someone's face with my 18-55mm lens (Canon) with the focal length closer to the 55mm end, will the person's face be distorted much? (Would it make the face look wider?)

No. The distortion comes from the fact that with wide angle lenses you need to be close to the person's face. With longer focal lengths, you can be further back, which means there is less distortion.

Okay thanks. What if the camera was about an arms length away?

Generally, aim to be no closer than two or three meters. If you are five meters away and shooting with a 70-200mm lens, then that's great. many pros like shooting portraits with one of those. Remember, getting up close to the face creates that huge perspective shift that causes the distortion. If you step back and zoom in, then this perspective vanishes.

 

[DiskoJoe]

No. The distortion comes from the fact that with wide angle lenses you need to be close to the person's face. With longer focal lengths, you can be further back, which means there is less distortion.

Okay thanks. What if the camera was about an arms length away?

Generally, aim to be no closer than two or three meters. If you are five meters away and shooting with a 70-200mm lens, then that's great. many pros like shooting portraits with one of those. Remember, getting up close to the face creates that huge perspective shift that causes the distortion. If you step back and zoom in, then this perspective vanishes.

If I use the 70-200 for portraits I set it to 85mm and try to walk around to get the right framing after that.

 

[LuckySe7en]

zoom in and squeeze some bokeh out of that baby!