Focal Lengths and Different Viewpoints

Exercise - 2 or more photographs

The purpose of this exercise is to demonstrate the effect a change in viewpoint and a change in lens can have on perspective. I have taken two photographs of a car I spotted in a local car park to demonstrate the results.

The first image was taken on a Canon 70 -250 lens at 60mm. It shows a fairly normal perspective of the car although it is slightly closer than the "normal" view as our eye would see it.




Image 1. f/11 60mm.

  In the next image which was taken with a Sigma 10-20mm wide angle lens at 18mm there is a clear change in the perspective.

Image 2. f/11 18mm.



The wide angle lens has exaggerated the size of the front of the car and it now appears much broader. The front of the car is more prominent while the background has shrunk in comparison. The linear perspective has also been affected by the wide angle view.

If you imagine a line drawn along both wings of the car from the bottom corners diagonally towards the top of the car, the diagonal is much more pronounced in image 2. This image has a much stronger presence and the impression given is that this car is nearer to the camera. The exaggerated linear perspective gives the image more depth.