lens perspective question?

[jb7]

If I had a 135 format lens of a given focal length, say 50mm, and had the equivalent focal length in medium format and in 4x5, would there be a difference in the overall perspective or "the way the print looks"???

Equivalent focal lengths are usually calculated at infinity. Larger formats produce larger magnifications, so the equivalence breaks down at around portrait distance, where the lens is substantially racked out. If a 300mm on 4x5 is roughly the equivalent of an 85mm on 35 at infinity, the same lens at portrait distance might behave more like a 110mm, depending on the magnification used.

Perspective is wholly dependent on where you place the lens, rules for equivalence between formats break down as soon as you focus closer than mid distance. Angle of view will get narrower-

[Jeffrey Sipress]

I have a feeling the OP meant to say 'angle of view' or 'coverage' instead of perspective. I agree with the numerous posters who defined the term perspective.

[Bob Salomon]

We were taught perspective differently. We were taught that it changes with the angle of the camera to the subject. So:

Take a shot on any format with any lens at any distance. Move closer or further away, change lenses or change formats and the perspective remains the same.

Now take that first shot standing upu. Take a second one while kneeling from exactly the same spot with the same lens and camera of the same subject area. Now you have changed the perspective.

[stradibarrius]

Obviously I used the wrong word "perspective". I know better and I muddied up the question by using it in that way.
By taking the shot from exactly the same place at the same height etc. the "perspective" on all three shots would be the same.

The reason I asked the question was because I read a comment on a photo that had been taken with a 4x5 camera on one of the photo posting sites. The commenter said something to the effect that the 4x5 format has such a beautiful DOF???
I don't know what that means relative to other formats and was trying to find out if the statement had any basis in fact or if the poster just "felt" there was a difference?

[E. von Hoegh]

Obviously I used the wrong word "perspective". I know better and I muddied up the question by using it in that way.
By taking the shot from exactly the same place at the same height etc. the "perspective" on all three shots would be the same.

The reason I asked the question was because I read a comment on a photo that had been taken with a 4x5 camera on one of the photo posting sites. The commenter said something to the effect that the 4x5 format has such a beautiful DOF???
I don't know what that means relative to other formats and was trying to find out if the statement had any basis in fact or if the poster just "felt" there was a difference?

The poster might not know what he's talking about. DOF is a function of focal length, reproduction ratio, and aperture, and is readily quantified.

[Steve Smith]

The poster might not know what he's talking about.

Not quite. If you take two photographs from the same place, one with a 35mm camera and one with 5x4 and each was fitted with a lens which gives the same angle of view and the same aperture setting was used on both, the 35mm shot would have much more depth of field than that of the 5x4.


Steve.

[E. von Hoegh]

Not quite. If you take two photographs from the same place, one with a 35mm camera and one with 5x4 and each was fitted with a lens which gives the same angle of view and the same aperture setting was used on both, the 35mm shot would have much more depth of field than that of the 5x4.


Steve.

I'm very well aware of that; I stated it in my post. "Focal length" and "Reproduction ratio".

[Heroique]

...The reason I asked the question was because I read a comment on a photo that had been taken with a 4x5 camera on one of the photo posting sites. The commenter said something to the effect that the 4x5 format has such a beautiful DOF. I don’t know what that means relative to other formats...

I agree w/ most of the posts above about perspective (and strenuously disagree with a few of them!), but maybe I can give one more example – an oversimplified one – to help explain the “beautiful DOF” remark by the commentator you’ve quoted:

The DOF w/ a 180mm lens on a 35mm camera will be the same as the DOF w/ a 180mm lens on a 4x5 camera at the same position.

However, if you want the two compositions to fill the frame in a similar way (which might be more difficult than one thinks, since the two aspect ratios are different), the 35mm camera is going to have to be further away.

Let’s say you do this – move the 35mm camera further away, to make its composition look somewhat similar to the 4x5 camera’s composition.

Doing this, of course, gives the 35mm composition “more” DOF because you’ve moved further away.

I suspect the commentator you’ve quoted thought the 4x5 composition had “such a beautiful DOF” simply because it was shallower, throwing the background into greater blur, which was found to be more subjectively pleasing.

[Jeffrey Sipress]

We were taught perspective differently. We were taught that it changes with the angle of the camera to the subject. So:

Take a shot on any format with any lens at any distance. Move closer or further away, change lenses or change formats and the perspective remains the same.

Now take that first shot standing upu. Take a second one while kneeling from exactly the same spot with the same lens and camera of the same subject area. Now you have changed the perspective.

Sorry, Bob, that is a misconception that many very knowledgeable photography instructors spend their lives trying to correct. With so many photographers at differing levels of experience these days, the term perspective is used to mean whatever any person is trying to say. What YOU are doing is changing the composition. True perspective, the relationship among elements within a scene, is a factor of camera to subject distance.

[Dan Fromm]

Not quite. If you take two photographs from the same place, one with a 35mm camera and one with 5x4 and each was fitted with a lens which gives the same angle of view and the same aperture setting was used on both, the 35mm shot would have much more depth of field than that of the 5x4.


Steve.

Not true if the final prints are the same size.