Re:Telephoto fear: how lenses affect views of crowds
by ghaff on Wednesday January 27, 2021 @09:32AM
(#25928675)
Yeah, 50mm was the traditional full-frame 35mm film "normal" lens but anything from about 35mm focal length to 100mm or so would be pretty conventional. You get wider or longer than that and you're getting into different perspectives than what a human eye would normally see. But, as you say, it's not really a straightforward comparison.
Re:Telephoto fear: how lenses affect views of crowds
by formerly_proven on Thursday January 28, 2021 @01:25PM
(#25946421)
Viewfinders are also usually designed to have around 1x magnification with a 50 mm lens. That's why the viewfinders on crop DSLRs seem smaller than on a fullframe, because they literally are 2/3rds the size.
Re:Telephoto fear: how lenses affect views of crowds
by bborud on Wednesday January 27, 2021 @05:19PM
(#25934871)
...not least because you have that lump inside your head that does a fair bit of processing on what your eye reports to your brain and constructs something we think of as seeing but isn't actually what is sensed by the eye.
Re:Telephoto fear: how lenses affect views of crowds
by heftig on Wednesday January 27, 2021 @11:50AM
(#25930442)
What if you compare a wide angle shot with a panorama created from multiple normal lens shots?
Re:Telephoto fear: how lenses affect views of crowds
by formerly_proven on Wednesday January 27, 2021 @01:07PM
(#25931563)
That doesn't matter if the panorama is stitched using the same projection as the lens (i.e. rectilinear panorama for a rectilinear lens, or a fisheye pano for a fisheye lens), because projection and field of view are the same, so the images are the same.
Note that professionally made panoramas are often made with more complicated and hand-tuned projections like Panini.
It depends on what you are doing with the eye. For example, when you are focusing on a single thing, like a person talking to you, then a picture with a 50 mm (135) lens generally looks sorta similar in terms of proportions and perceived perspective. But if you are taking in the scenery, a 50 mm lens would seem to be too narrow and you need a moderate wide angle to convey a similar feel. Similarly, intently focusing on a distant object will make a 50 mm seem to broad, and a 105 mm will seem more like it.