Perspective. In issue three of The Art of Photography, EOS users and other photo enthusiasts alike were shown how to make use of the various focal lengths and angle-of-views available from using interchangeable EF lenses on their EOS cameras. They were also shown some examples of the effects of the lenses' on perspective distortions from wide-angle to telephoto lenses. In this sixth issue of The Art of Photography, the focus is on how to use the effects of such perspective distortions to further improve your pictures. As stated in issue No. 3, fish-eye, super wide-angle and wide-angle lenses exaggerated perspectives and telephoto lenses compressed them. Such effects are commonly known as perspective distortions. To avoid confusion, perspective distortion is different from linear distortion. Fish-eye lenses, whether they offered 180° angle-of-view or full-frame versions, gives out both linear and perspective distortions. Super wide-angle and wide-angle lenses are, however, corrected for linear distortion. Linear distortion means that straight lines are not reproduced as straight lines by the lens concerned. This effect is true on all fish-eye lenses. Perspective distortion simply refers to the exaggerating effects produced by all super wide-angle and wide-angle lenses and compressing effects with standard and telephoto lenses. Most EOS users and other photo enthusiasts would already know that close-up portraits photographed using wide-angle lenses will exaggerate the features of the person. To correct such effect when shooting portraits, photographers would shoot using a standard lens or any focal length lenses of 85mm or longer for a more realistic look. Buildings that seems to be bending backward when shooting with wide-angle lenses, subjects that are slightly stretched, especially those are placed near the edges of the frame, wide gap of spaces between foreground and background subjects, these are examples of the exaggerated perspective distortion effects by wide-angle lenses. Compressed perspective, common with standard and all telephoto focal lengths, is however, not an artificial effect of such lenses. Compressed perspectives do actually exists in reality. Photographers that were taught how to "see" with their eyes, can visualize a compressed effect without using their cameras or lenses. If you look carefully at distant objects, you will see that the subject(s) and the respective backgrounds do seem nearer than they actually are in reality. Because telephoto lenses have narrower angle-of-view and shallow depth-of-field effects compared to wide-angle lenses, the images seen through such lenses would bring out the effects of compressed perspective more clearly. On the next few pages, EOS users and photo enthusiasts can view images exploring the effects of perspective distortions creatively. As usual, observe the two other questions and other fundamentals of photography and see which were applied to the pictures. << Back to Main . 1 . 2 . 3 . 4 . 5 .