Perspective

Harry Callahan · Monday at 5:48 PM

The main problem is that the term perspective can be an umbrella term which does mean several things or different things on different matters. "In my perspective..." - it even is an often used phrase. A term everybody has heard once in a while.
Because of that it`s a more vague term - which probably is the reason for youtubers using it so often.

cliveh said:
Perspective is one of the most important aspects of photography and it is why I only use a 50mm lens. However, I see many utube videos where photographers talk about controlling perspective with different focal length lenses.

To sort this out it probably was better to ask every single youtuber what he means when using the term "perspective".

RalphLambrecht · Monday at 6:14 PM

Chan Tran said:
Yes but that often goes with changing camera position thus it changes the perspective. That's why many would think zooming changes perspective.

You've got a point there.the confusion continues.

RalphLambrecht · Monday at 6:16 PM

wiltw said:
but i you really think about it...a shift of large format standard moves the lens, so 'perspective' truly is altered by lens movement, fore/aft, left/right, up/down, even tilt ALL 'move the lens'.

not enough to make a perceptible difference.

Chan Tran · Monday at 6:54 PM

RalphLambrecht said:
You've got a point there.the confusion continues.

In my opinion. The perspective as well as the so called "crop factor" are simple but if you don't get it you will never get it.

wiltw · 2025-04-15T00:29:07-0400

RalphLambrecht said:
not enough to make a perceptible difference.

So when you make something rectilinear again (rather than converging lines) that is not a 'perceptible difference'?!

It does get to the point of 'change of position of camera/lens', so that some rather subtle changes can make very visible differences.

Alan Edward Klein · 2025-04-15T09:47:53-0400

MattKing said:
If you are using "perspective" to refer to "point of view", any side to side movement of the camera as a whole or movements of lens or film plane can arguably create a change of perspective.
If, however, you are using "perspective" more narrowly, to refer to how closer and farther objects in the scene relate to each other in the result, then things like side to side movements or movements of the lens or film plane usually don't create a change of perspective.
So as is often the case when considering these sorts of things, it is necessary and helpful to first define one's terms.
FWIW, I took the reference in the initial question posed to lens focal lengths to imply a question about the more narrow definition of "perspective".

cliveh said:
That was my intention.

The title of the thread is Perspective. To discuss it only in terms of focal lengths could fool people into thinking it's the only definition. Defining it as "point of view" is as legitimate as the other.

koraks · 2025-04-15T09:49:06-0400

Full circle in 2 months. Could be worse, although I think we can do better.

loccdor · 2025-04-15T09:59:28-0400

koraks said:
Full circle in 2 months. Could be worse, although I think we can do better.

A circle of confusion?

koraks · 2025-04-15T10:22:10-0400

Depends on your perspective.

MattKing · 2025-04-15T12:53:13-0400

Alan Edward Klein said:
The title of the thread is Perspective. To discuss it only in terms of focal lengths could fool people into thinking it's the only definition. Defining it as "point of view" is as legitimate as the other.

It is always interesting to me to observe who actually reads the titles, and who doesn't.
The same applies to the choice of sub-forum.

chuckroast · 2025-04-15T13:56:02-0400

Alan Edward Klein said:
The title of the thread is Perspective. To discuss it only in terms of focal lengths could fool people into thinking it's the only definition. Defining it as "point of view" is as legitimate as the other.

I gently disagree. "Perspective" in art is defined to be the spacial relationship between the viewer and the objects in the scene. In a two dimensional medium such as photography, this comes down to the view of the relationship between foreground and background, and side to side objects.

None of those are changed when you zoom in or out. Only changing the camera (viewing) position relative to those visual elements changes the "perspective". In other words, you cannot change the "point of view" without moving the ... uhm ... point at which you are viewing OR if you rearrange the elements in the scene as one might do with tabletop or product photography.

All things being otherwise the same, changing focal length does nothing to the point of view. It only includes or excludes less- or more of the scene.

There are, of course, other relevant things that change when focal length is varied, most notably the depth-of-field. But this also does nothing to change perspective.

So focal length is not only not "the only definition", it isn't one at all, unless changing focal length causes you to also change the viewing position to the subject.

chuckroast · 2025-04-15T14:03:00-0400

Sirius Glass said:
It is possible to use focal length as the functional driver to controlling perspective. I have done that in the past and will likely do that in the future. A longer length lens can make subjects appear to stack up while a wider angle lens makes it appear as though the observer has stepped back.

Nope:

Perspective distortion - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

chuckroast · 2025-04-15T14:03:33-0400

Chuck_P said:
I've always viewed perspective as the result of the camera to subject distance regardless of the focal length used. I guess there's different ways of looking at it.

That is exactly and only what it is.

Chan Tran · 2025-04-15T14:34:37-0400

Perspective can mean a way of thinking or understanding something and would have nothing to do with photography.

Don_ih · 2025-04-15T14:41:29-0400

All evidence here is that the word "perspective" is not really well-defined in a technical way for photography. Everything that has been discussed more readily falls under different terminology.

Alan Edward Klein · 2025-04-15T14:45:08-0400

chuckroast said:
I gently disagree. "Perspective" in art is defined to be the spacial relationship between the viewer and the objects in the scene. In a two dimensional medium such as photography, this comes down to the view of the relationship between foreground and background, and side to side objects.

None of those are changed when you zoom in or out. Only changing the camera (viewing) position relative to those visual elements changes the "perspective". In other words, you cannot change the "point of view" without moving the ... uhm ... point at which you are viewing OR if you rearrange the elements in the scene as one might do with tabletop or product photography.

All things being otherwise the same, changing focal length does nothing to the point of view. It only includes or excludes less- or more of the scene.

There are, of course, other relevant things that change when focal length is varied, most notably the depth-of-field. But this also does nothing to change perspective.

So focal length is not only not "the only definition", it isn't one at all, unless changing focal length causes you to also change the viewing position to the subject.

I said that in my posts 34 and 40, but included focal lens in 36. 2 out of 3 ain't bad.

chuckroast · 2025-04-15T15:09:43-0400

Alan Edward Klein said:
I said that in my posts 34 and 40, but included focal lens in 36. 2 out of 3 ain't bad.

chuckroast · 2025-04-15T15:34:30-0400

Don_ih said:
All evidence here is that the word "perspective" is not really well-defined in a technical way for photography. Everything that has been discussed more readily falls under different terminology.

Photography is a visual art. The meaning of the term is well established in the context of art and has been for a very long time. It is indeed well defined. It doesn't matter whether it's a painting, a photograph, or a sculpture, "perspective" is established by the relationship between the viewer and the subject.

The term even has a parallel sense in music where the "soundscape" defines how the listener perceives the music spacially. This can apply to live music in how the instruments and/or speakers are placed.

What I think happens is that people tend use the term when what they mean is a change in composition, magnification, or other non-perspective changing elements of aesthetics.

For a long time, I myself was under the impression I could change perspective by changing focal length. I was brought into and understanding of what it actually means when I started reading the Ansel Adams three book foundation.

The word "perspective" does have other meanings outside of art, of course. This then leads to tortured sentences like "The perspective of that piece of art, changed my perspective on society."

Don_ih · 2025-04-15T15:45:58-0400

chuckroast said:
Photography is a visual art.

Yet in other visual art, perspective is set by the artist. It is a conscious, deliberate choice, not just incidental to composition the way it is in photography. But you can take photos your entire life and never once consider the term "perspective" (as defined within other visual art) as having anything to do with what you're doing.

A great part of this discussion was about lens compression. That is well-known and discussed within photography. Other things discussed here were changes of focal length, cropping, and camera movements - also all things well-known and discussed within photography. To an extent, photography is only about looking at things, so the general term "perspective" applies to every aspect of using a camera (except maybe using a camera as a bludgeon).

chuckroast · 2025-04-15T15:55:31-0400

Don_ih said:
Yet in other visual art, perspective is set by the artist. It is a conscious, deliberate choice, not just incidental to composition the way it is in photography. But you can take photos your entire life and never once consider the term "perspective" (as defined within other visual art) as having anything to do with what you're doing.

But the artist - whether painter, sculptor, carver, or photographer makes a conscious decision about what the view can or will see. I guess I don't understand why you think photography is different. Perhaps you could clarify?

Don_ih said:
A great part of this discussion was about lens compression. That is well-known and discussed within photography. Other things discussed here were changes of focal length, cropping, and camera movements - also all things well-known and discussed within photography. To an extent, photography is only about looking at things, so the general term "perspective" applies to every aspect of using a camera (except maybe using a camera as a bludgeon).

Perhaps the problem is that there are two different uses of the term "perspective" in play here. There is the perspective of the viewer looking/consuming the artifact. This has a specific and invariant meaning as noted upthread. But there is also the "perspective" of the artist - their worldview, their sense of what they want to convey, the things that animate their work, the context of their work and so forth. That has no rigorous definition. One word, two very different contexts.

Alan Edward Klein · 2025-04-15T17:01:49-0400

When shooting at your waist, you get a different perspective than when shooting at eye level. Nothing to do with zoom.

chuckroast · 2025-04-15T17:29:53-0400

Alan Edward Klein said:
When shooting at your waist, you get a different perspective than when shooting at eye level. Nothing to do with zoom.

Yes, because you are moving the camera relative to the subject in these two shooting positions.

Don_ih · 2025-04-15T19:46:15-0400

chuckroast said:
I don't understand why you think photography is different.

It's not so much that I think photography is different. It's that the consideration of perspective so permeates all photography, it never gets explicitly conceptionally differentiated from it. When all other concerns go correctly (exposure, developing, printing), the composition practically is equivalent to whatever could be called the perspective. In the other visual arts, considerations of technique and just plain skill are always more apparent. Perspective is more of an aspect of other visual art, since you can talk about other aspects that exclude it. Try to do that meaningfully with photography.

Harry Callahan · 2025-04-15T22:15:37-0400

In my perspective perspective also does depend on perspective.

It`s a vague term, that`s the problem. And the youtube-guys actually talk about object distortion you can get with a wide-angle lens - but call it perspective - because perspective also can mean a subjective perception. Same section of a subject taken with a wide-angle lens will appear different, because a wide-angle lens does distort.
When these youtube-guys claim a different foal length to change "perspective" they actually mean a change in subjective perception of the subject.
But as they're youtube-guys they either don`t know better or have to keep it simple to get clicks. So they use a term everybody knows, everybody has a "feeling" for, because you know...
...perspective also does depend on perspective.

Alan Edward Klein said:
When shooting at your waist, you get a different perspective than when shooting at eye level. Nothing to do with zoom.

Yes, as you`re changing between worm`s eye view and bird`s eye view.

Milpool · 2025-04-15T23:26:15-0400

I remember an interesting story about an artist born blind but who could do perspective drawings.

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