Tip of the Day: Understand Perspective

Perspective (the relative size of objects in relation to each other) is governed only by the distance to the subject.

The image of my mailbox below is not deformed, it’s just the result of honest rendering of its optical size front-to-back relative to the camera, a reality equation our brain largely hides from us with the size invariance principle: things stay about the same size within a relatively wide range of distances. Visual cues matter; this is (mostly) why the moon looks huge on the horizon.

In this case, the front of the mailbox is about twice as close to the lens as the rear, which it means its image really is about four times as large (2X2). Hint: most women don’t like to be photographed up close with an 18mm lens!

One of the few mailboxes teenagers haven’t destroyed
Nikon D3 + Zeiss ZF 18mm f/3.5 Distagon

I’ve always found extreme wide angles to be a challenge to shoot; there’s lots of space to fill! A longer focal length makes it much easier to isolate the subject without distracting elements.

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