It’s a very confusing moment the first time you really realise that zooming in and physically moving closer to your subject create two very different aesthetics in your images. Understanding how this works is a really important technique, as it does dramatically effect your images.
First of all, if you just want to get in closer to your subject, it’s always better to try to do this in camera than cropping in post-production. Although cropping can be a useful tool when you need to compensate for not having gear that will allow you to get in closer, you sacrifice in terms of resolution. The closer in your crop your image, the lower your resolution will become.
So, to get in closer means that you either physically move closer or zoom in, right? You often hear people say ‘zoom with your feet’ and, well with a prime lens, you’ll have no other choice than to zoom with your feet or switch to another lens, as they have a fixed focal length. However, moving physically closer with your prime will look very different than if you use optical zoom with your lens.
One of the most notable things is the compression of your background. Note here, that compression and depth of field are different concepts. This is a very important point and not one to be explored fully in this article, but a very top line explanation is: depth of field is how much is in focus around your subject, compression is where the background seems to be flattened or pulled closer to a subject.
When you stay in the same place simply zoom in with your lens, without changing your distance from the subject, it will act like you're cropping in but it will not change the relationship between the background and the foreground.
All these images were taken from the same distance from the statue, just zooming in with the lens. You can see that it looks like the image is just being cropped in.
Changing your physical distance from your subject, however, will impact the compression of your background. Staying close to your subject and using a wide focal length will make the background look further away. If you move further away from your subject and extend your focal length, the background will appear closer. Moving closer to a subject will allow you to get a clearer background that seems more defined and has more perceived depth, whereas moving further away will pull your background in closer to your subject and compress it more.
The bike stays the same size in the frame but the background changes. The background seems much closer to the bike at 85mm.
As you can see in the above image, as the focal length gets longer and you move away from the subject, there is less background visible, and what is visible looks closer to the subject.
To test it out yourself, keep your subject the same size in the frame and walk in, while widening your focal length. Then, walk back out and extend your focal length. See the difference in the appearance of your background when you do this.
Being mindful of how much background each focal length will allow you to include in your shot and what it will look like can help you to execute more creative and thoughful compositions.
Another impact on moving in very close to a subject with a short focal length is you see distortion. When you are very close in to your subjects, your foreground will seem disproportionately bigger than your background. This is why people often say you should shoot portraits from further away, as it can have crazy effects on your images. When shooting portraits, it can give subjects the ‘back of spoon’ look. This distortion doesn’t have to be a disadvantage though, you can use knowledge of this to create some really interesting and striking results.
2017-9-29 03:00