What happens when you get too close to the 50mm lens? Well, you get a horrendous distortion. Now, a distorted face on a little kid might be good for a laugh. But, for anyone who cares about their looks too close is a disaster.
Why does this happen? The main reason is that closer objects appear to be bigger. So his nose is very close to the lens and so appears bigger than his ears. But what has that got to do with close up distortion? It is because the difference in distance gets bigger as you get closer. At 25 feet away his nose is less than 1% closer than his ears. At 1 foot away there is a 20% difference.
We can use this to our advantage when taking a portrait – more to come in a future post.
Canon EF 50mm f/1.4 | Canon 7d | 1/60 sec at f/8
