I had always thought this was a joke or something that affected antiquated equipment more than the newer kind, and I wondered why I didn’t really see this effect, well, anywhere. I’ve even recently gotten into photography and still fail to see this phenomenon (except under certain case, like photographing wide and up close), so again I tossed it to the back of my head as being an issue of the past.
Then I read this article and at least part of the situation became clear: I’m blind in my right eye.
I know that this means I lose range of vision, closeup depth perception, the ability to easily straighten my hat without a mirror, 3D movies, etc etc, but I didn’t know it was making everyone look fat too. What else do I not know I’m missing?
Also, since I’ve been like this since an accident when I was less than a year old, what I see is normal to me. Does that mean if I ever was able to regain binocular vision everyone would look thin and stick-like?
I really don’t think it’s as big of a deal as you make it out to be. Doing my own experiences of closing one eye, then opening it, I don’t really see a difference in people’s apparent weight. I very much doubt it would make the difference between fat and stick-like.
One significant effect is how tv is a great leveller in terms of height.
I was at the filming of a comedy show recently which had two performers: one 5ft 6, and the other 6ft 7.
On tv, you can see one performer is taller than the other, but the difference looks no more than a few inches, and they both seem about average height.
I’m aware of some of the ways this is done, but the effect is still surprising.
Seriously, there’s also the effect that too close, the nearer features are exaggerated compared to further features; not quite as bad as fish-eye lenses, but the same idea. Also, the level of the camera - too close to eye level, and the upper half of the body looks bigger than the lower half. You should be quite a ways away to avoid the distortion; hence the idea of longer lenses. Most "potrait’ lenses tend to be in the 70mm range, rather tahn 50mm standard. (For 35 mm film - remember that stuff?)
The height difference is something that is not only deliberately avoided by clever PR people, it’s also psychological. Pierre Trudea was prime minister of Canada during the 70’s. His main contender for the late 70’s was Joe Clark. Trudea was thin and athletic (and arrogant, and a disaster for Canada, and a lot of other things). He was 5’9" not short but not tall. Clark had a weak chin and an public image as a clumsy non-athletic person. He was 6’2". The size difference was significant, but both were normal enough. Through all the debates and any other public appearances, Trudeau’s handlers made sure that he was never close enough for a direct comparison camera shot.
People believed the athletic guy was tall and the goofy guy was short - psychology. People who evntually met them in person did occasionally remark on how they were not the size they expected them to be, from their image.
Resurrecting this thread because someone has just produced a great animation that illustrates this phenomenon. They’ve photographed the same man, in the same pose and at the same angle, with several different lenses. The effect on how we perceive his weight is really quite remarkable.
To me, that animation merely gives the impression of the man walking towards me. Surely, people look bigger up close than at a distance, but that’s not how we would estimate their weights!
It’s funny that we have such different perceptions of the same animation. For me, the man looks more like he’s moving away from the camera (yet getting larger), particularly if I focus on the parts of him that are closest to the lens, such as his nose.
Boy howdy but everyone’s cracking the same joke- and finds themselves to be both clever and hilarious. :smack:
I’ve been a photographer for 42 of my 54 years and a working cameraman for 37 of those years. Both in film and television.
It is fair to say that most people, when lit properly and made up properly, appear slightly fuller in the face than they do off-camera. Poor lighting and/ or lousy make up doesn’t help the cause.
I am in agreement that the perception is altered to a degree depending on the focal length of the lens.
I would also posit the idea that this added ten pounds is also greatly dependent upon the angle of view of the subject’s face. That is to say, where is the nodal point of the lens in relation to the subject’s nose.
If you shoot dead on to a person’s face, opposed to a few degrees below their eyeline or a few degrees above, the apparent heft of their face changes.
There’s also a lot of psychological empowerment involved in shooting UP slightly at someone opposed to shooting them neutrally opposed to shooting DOWN slightly at someone. I’m talking 1-2º here of angular tilt, not a raked angle used in a horror movie.
I don’t understand that animation. The height of the face remains constant, but the width increases. Is that a nomralization that I don’t understand, or is it faked?
The animation was probably adjusted to keep the face height constant. If you imagine a cylindrical paint can representing the human head, you’ll be able to “see” the entire front half of the can --180 degrees of its circumference – if you are taking your picture from infinitely far away. If your camera is just a couple of inches from the paint can, you won’t see close to 180 degrees, even if your lens has a wide enough view to capture the top and bottom edges of the can.
In human terms, if your camera is really close to the subject’s nose, you might not be able to see the subject’s ears – even if your lens is wide enough to show the subject’s neck and the top of their forehead.
The effect diminishes rapidly as you move the camera away from the subject. The paint can, or the head, won’t look significantly wider at 20 feet than it does at 5 feet. The face will look noticeable flatter at 20 feet than at 5 feet, because at 5 ft. the nose is significant closer to the camera than the rest of the face, and the ears are significantly further back.
If a human head was spherical its proportions wouldn’t change as the camera got closer, but since it’s closer to a cylinder, it gets narrower but it doesn’t decrease in height nearly as much. (Some of the head’s crown disappears as the camera gets closer.)
