On the choice of lens focal length in portrait shooting

When shooting a portrait, the choice of focal length has a great influence on the proportion of objects in the picture, which determines the feeling of the photo to the audience. Many novices regard optical zoom as the convenience of shooting. With the zoom lens, they can stand in place and shoot distant scenes, which is certainly not the posture that a portrait should have. The more professional idea is to decide what focal length to take this photo at first, and then go to the most suitable position to take it. You can't be lazy when taking horizontal portrait photos. Photography and painting also stress perspective. What's the difference between a photo taken with a short focal length (wide angle) lens and a photo taken with a long focal length (telephoto) lens? The most obvious difference is that if the model occupies the same area of the picture, the wide-angle lens needs to be closer to the model, while the telephoto lens needs to be farther away from the model. The closer to the model, the stronger the sense of perspective confusion. In other words, a wide-angle lens can show a strong sense of perspective, while a telephoto lens shows a low sense of perspective. What is perspective? This is a way to express three-dimensional space by plane. As we all know, closer objects will look bigger, and farther objects will look smaller. Therefore, people will intuitively think that larger objects are close to them and smaller objects are far away from them. When painting, painters will use this technique to draw smaller scenes on the background, and people will know that those scenes are far away from them. When shooting with wide-angle and long-focal ratio, you can change the distance between yourself and the model by using lenses with different focal lengths, so as to change the perspective between the model and the background. The distance between the foreground and the background of a photo taken with a wide-angle lens is exaggerated, and there will be obvious distortion around the photo. For example, if you take a bust with a wide-angle lens (such as 28mm or 35mm), you need to stand closer to the model. At this time, the model occupies a large area of the picture, and the background objects slightly farther away will be small, with a strong sense of perspective, and the distance between the far and near scenes is more exaggerated than what can be seen by the naked eye. In the photos taken with telephoto lens, there is not much difference in the size of near and far objects. It seems to have narrowed the distance between them, and the perspective of the photo is the smallest. For example, if you shoot the same bust with a telephoto lens (for example, 105mm to 300mm), you need to stand away from the model. From the photo, it seems that the background is pulled closer to the model, because the background scene is not obviously "restored". Assuming that the model occupies the same photo area, the wider the focal length, the farther away the model will be from the background. The longer the focal length, the closer the model is to the background. Wide angle is not suitable for close-up portraits. What lens should I use? First, consider whether more background is needed. If the whole environment is very distinctive at that time, consider using a wide-angle focal length, so that you can shoot models and more backgrounds at the same time. If you use a lower shooting angle at the same time, it will show a better sense of perspective and a greater visual impact than a horizontal shooting angle. If the model's hands and feet are placed closer to the camera, these parts will be more slender because of perspective. But the usual practice is to "lengthen" the model's legs with a wide-angle lens, and the shooting method of "lengthening" the hands needs to be combined with bold creativity. It should be noted that novices should not take close-ups of the model's face with a wide-angle lens, because shooting too close to the model will form a "strong perspective" on the face, the distance between the five senses will be pulled apart, the face will become wider and wider, and sometimes it will be scary. On the other hand, when shooting with a wide-angle lens, try to avoid shooting at an angle higher than that of the model and avoid taking pictures with big heads and small bodies. When shooting at a low angle, we should also pay attention to the fact that the model's head can't be raised to avoid the chin and neck becoming hypertrophy. The telephoto helps to simplify the background. If the shooting environment is messy, or you just want to focus on some special scenery, you can choose a longer focal length. At this point, there are only a few objects left in the background, and you can avoid unwanted background scenes such as light bulbs and pedestrians by changing the angle slightly. It is very good to take a close-up of the bust or face with a long focal length, because the model's facial features will look normal and the background will be simple, which is more suitable for novices.