Is "normal" perspective the most pleasing?

[aduncanson]

ic, Ken's Wikipedia reference includes a link defining a normal lens. It is defined in terms of the print size and the related normal viewing distance so if you are in a mood to question all uses of the word "normal" then you will probably not be satisfied. Wikipedia takes this normal viewing distance to be equal to the print diagonal and the normal focal length consequently turns out to be the negative diagonal, as is conventional. There will certainly be variation in normal viewing distance among viewers, resulting in differences in the effective value for the normal focal length for each viewer but that dependency need not invalidate the concept of normal viewing distance since the characteristics of the vision of the human population (certainly after correction) seem to be distributed closely around an average. [I mean, I used to work with a guy who preferred to sit on the floor with a paper box on his head and scribbled his work on paper placed over an aluminum plate taped to his desk chair, but most folks view their computer monitors from the same 18 to 24 inches that I do.] I think that it is valid to take as a normal viewing distance, the minimum distance that allows a typical viewer to take in the entire composition and evaluate it as a whole. This does not mean that I never put my nose to the glass, but when doing so, I am obviously looking at something less than the whole photograph.

Wikipedia's definition of a normal lens implicitly relies on the idea of a perspective center which is essentially the position of the taking lens relative to the film, replicated in front of the print, but moved out proportional to the print magnification. When a print is viewed from this perspective center, there is (generally) no perceived distortion. If viewing from inside of the center of perspective (as may occur when the use of a long taking lens pushes the perspective center further from the print), one sees compression of depths. When viewing from outside the perspective center, (because of a short taking lens, perhaps) one sees expansion. The normal lens produces a photo which when viewed from the normal distance results in neither expansion nor compression.

[Heroique]

Since it addresses the phrase “natural perspective,” the first sentence of Alan’s link above deserves instant visibility:

“In photography and cinematography a normal lens is a lens that reproduces perspective that generally looks “natural” to a human observer under normal viewing conditions, as compared with lenses with longer or shorter focal lengths which produce an expanded or contracted field of view.”

Picasso might flinch, but in the end, Wiki, much like Ken, does put quotes around “natural” (as a modifier of the noun, perspective), and that should help soothe people, like myself, who take exception to the phrase, “natural perspective” or “normal perspective.”

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One should keep in mind, however, that no matter how times you change the lens (if that’s the only change), or how much the “naturalness” of perspective changes when you do so, perspective itself has always stayed the same. Its perception has not.

Someone had a story about a hawk a few posts back...

[ic-racer]

Ken put normal in quotes in the title of the thread showing that he understands this is an often debated term, I am sure. But it is a generally accepted term used throughout photography technical literature for decades to mean the perspective of a lens whose focal length is roughly the diagonal of the film image area. Rightly or wrongly, some people believe that the perspective of such a lens yields relationships between near and distant objects in a picture in a way that is similar to the way our eye sees. Similar, but not the same is key.

That said, I don't think that anyone can make a reasonable argument that their eye sees more like a 47mm on 4x5 when it comes to how near, middle and distant objects appear within a scene.

A lens cannot posess the property of perspective. Perspective is independent of the lens and dependent only on subject distance.



When is perspective abnormal other than in photoshop and compute graphics? If I am close to a subject the nose will be bigger in relation to the rest of the face. That is normal perspective for a close subject distance. I can only speculate that an abnormal situation would be when the nose is made smaller in photoshop and the ears are made bigger and in that case the perspective would be abnormal.

[John NYC]

A lens cannot posess the property of perspective. Perspective is independent of the lens and dependent only on subject distance.



When is perspective abnormal other than in photoshop and compute graphics? If I am close to a subject the nose will be bigger in relation to the rest of the face. That is normal perspective for a close subject distance. I can only speculate that an abnormal situation would be when the nose is made smaller in photoshop and the ears are made bigger and in that case the perspective would be abnormal.

I am not going to argue with you. We are using standard photographic terms and conventions here to discuss a concept I think we are all familiar with. Whether you think those conventional terms should be thrown out is another discussion.

[ic-racer]

I am not going to argue with you. We are using standard photographic terms and conventions here to discuss a concept I think we are all familiar with. Whether you think those conventional terms should be thrown out is another discussion.

Hi, John
I didn't realize I was quoting you. No offense, just my 2 cents (and worth every cent)..

[Michael Roberts]

totally in the fwiw department, I think this is an interesting discussion, though I confess I haven't yet made it through all the comments. Mark's picture caught my eye, so here's my 2 cents to this point. I tend to shoot with normal, wide, and longer lenses--sometimes extremely long (610mm on 4x5). But what drives the decision for me is subject matter and composition; choice of lens length is subordinate to that. I do a lot of landscapes and mostly those call for normal or wider lenses. When I want to select only part of a scene--a pattern on a rock wall, a petroglyph, a tight shot of water coursing around a boulder in a stream, a section of an aspen grove (your typical intimate landscape), then I usually choose a longer lens, unless I can get close enough with a normal lens. My 152mm stays on my 4x5, and my 300mm stays on my 8x10 because for most of the places I go, those normal lenses tend to be my lens of choice.

Mark, I liked your photo of the convention center, but I decided the sidewalk and sky were too distracting from the angles and lines of the steps and roof, so I would crop as shown. What's interesting about this, to me, is that you would likely need the wide lens to get in as much of the design elements as possible, but would also need to crop to a different format to eliminate distracting elements that the wider lens captures. I find this to be true in many of the instances where I need a wide lens to get in some elements of a scene that a longer lens cannot, but then need to crop out unwanted bits that also are captured. Of course, this is as much a result of the format/aspect ratio (80%, 70%...40%) as the relative focal length--but sometimes the two are interdependent.

To paraphrase Ansel Adams: There are no boring lenses (or perspectives), only boring photographs.

As someone else said, the subject matter and the photographer's vision determine the lens or perspective choice.

If I may be so bold as to use one of my humble images as an example, this image was shot with a 55mm lens on 4x5. Is this perspective displeasing or distracting? I don't think so. I think the wide angle perspective gives it an energy and dynamism that a similar shot with a normal lens would be lacking. In my opinion the wide angle perspective pushes this shot from the mundane to an almost abstract study of lines and planes, tones and textures. The wide angle lens gave me what I wanted. I ask again, is this perspective displeasing or distracting? Would a normal perspective be more pleasing or less distracting?

[Ken Lee]

I've been looking through some older photos, to see how space was rendered. Here's one where the sense of distance is pleasing (to me): not overly compressed, not too wide, but not "normal" either.

It was made on 4x5 with an old 210mm Heliar. (Another lens I should have probably kept... Oh well.) TMY, D-76, Sinar P.

[John NYC]

I've been looking through some older photos, to see how space was rendered. Here's one where the sense of distance is pleasing (to me): not overly compressed, not too wide, but not "normal" either.

It was made on 4x5 with an old 210mm Heliar. (Another lens I should have probably kept... Oh well.) TMY, D-76, Sinar P.

Lovely.

When I know from experience of similar or the same locations what the near far relationships of the elements in the scene are, that is when "normal" on up to short tele represent them most appealingly to me personally.

[mdm]

What focal length did you use for landscape 12 and 15? I think it depends, however the extremes always look unnatural to me. Anything between 180 and 300 on 5x7 and 135 and 210 on 4x5 feels ok. Balance.

[rdenney]

I've been looking through some older photos, to see how space was rendered. Here's one where the sense of distance is pleasing (to me): not overly compressed, not too wide, but not "normal" either.

It was made on 4x5 with an old 210mm Heliar. (Another lens I should have probably kept... Oh well.) TMY, D-76, Sinar P.

This image provides two or three focal length effects. The view through the window is like a long-lens composition. It's like a photograph of a distant scene made with a long lens framed by a window at "normal" perspective. The perspective therefore works at several levels.

Rick "interested in compositions through doorways and windows" Denney