How to improve the visual impact of photographic works

What is perspective? Perspective can make nearby objects appear larger, while distant objects appear smaller. This is one of the core concepts of photography. Mastering and exaggerating this technique can make your photos have greater impact. In this paper, we will introduce three factors that affect perspective to help us use this technology better.

Three elements to achieve better perspective effect

1. Use a lens with a shorter focal length.

2, as close as possible to the main distance.

Step 3 shoot from an oblique angle

Perspective refers to the visual phenomenon that the near is big and the far is small. In photography, it will be affected by three major factors, namely: focal length, shooting distance and shooting angle.

1. focal length: The shorter the focal length, the stronger the perspective effect, such as wide-angle lens or ultra-wide-angle lens. Conversely, the longer the focal length, the weaker the perspective effect.

2. Distance from the subject (shooting distance or focusing distance): The closer the camera is to the subject, the stronger the perspective effect. The farther the camera is from the subject, the weaker the perspective effect is.

3. Shooting angle: The more parallel the camera is to the subject (the smaller the shooting angle, the weaker the perspective effect). On the contrary, if you shoot the camera at a certain angle with the subject, it will have a strong perspective effect.

Simply put, the easiest way to get a strong perspective effect is to use a wide-angle lens, as close as possible to the subject, and shoot diagonally. The unique perspective exaggeration effect of wide-angle lens helps to take wonderful photos with strong impact, three-dimensional sense and strong sense of scale. This effect is suitable for deep depth of field.

focal distance

The following pictures were taken from the same position, using the same standard zoom lens, but with different focal lengths. At a short focal length (24mm), the perspective effect is quite obvious: the elements close to the audience in the picture appear larger, while the elements far away appear smaller. On the contrary, at a longer focal length (70mm), the perspective effect is not so obvious.

Distance from the subject

The following example shoots objects from different distances with the same focal length (50 mm). In the following example, please pay attention to the parts near us: the parts near us in the building look larger in scale (the example of 3m), and when we observe the lines above and below the building in each image, they form a triangle. In the example of 2m, this triangle is more malleable than that of 3m, and in the example of 3m, the line extends far. This shows that the closer the camera is to the subject, the stronger the perspective effect.

shooting angle

The following examples were taken from different angles with the same focal length (50 mm). Shooting the subject diagonally (45 example) makes the window appear perspective effect and distorts the rectangle. On the contrary, if you shoot from a plane angle (a positive example), there is almost no perspective effect, and the rectangular window will not be deformed like the actual effect.

1. Pay attention to the lines in the picture when composing.

When you take a perspective photo with a wide-angle lens, you should pay close attention to the lines in the picture. Bold angle shooting can make the lines in buildings, roads, paths, rivers and other elements look closer to the diagonal, which can improve the perspective effect. You can also use them to increase the depth of photos or to draw the audience's attention to a specific point.

2. Try different positions and angles.

If you shoot horizontally from the line of sight, it is not easy to get a perspective effect. You should shoot at a low position or at a high angle. Even simply tilting the camera up or down can bring different effects.