Perspective can make a big difference when photographing any subject, but you especially want to be observant when photographing models. Shooting at different angles can drastically affect the way your subject looks and the impact made by the photo. In this short video, photographer Jay P. Morgan shows how changing camera angles can affect the look and shape of a person’s body:
As you can see, there’s a huge difference between each angle. The extremely low and high angles distort the body the most, yet they add a certain kind of dynamic look that could be useful depending on what your goal is. Morgan also uses two different focal lengths to show how it too can affect the look of your subject and how the perspective changes between each angle.
Waist level tend to give the most normal looking perspective
Low angles make the legs look longer
High angle shots accentuate the head and shoulders
The most non-distorted view seems to be the normal 50mm lens at waist height. This keeps the body in proportion and doesn’t make certain body parts seem larger like the 24mm tends to do.
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What photographer, who knew anything about lenses, would use a wide angle lens like like an 11-24mm for portraits? Even on a Canon, a 24mm x 1.6 = a 38.4mm lens. on a Canon cropped sensor, Even wider on a 1.5 crop.sensor. Portrait lenses start at 50mm on crop sensors and the “perfect” portrait lens on a full frame is 85mm, That’s why most pros use 70-200 zooms and 85mm primes for portraits.
I suppose using 24mm will exaggerate the distortion and the point is made.
Wow this is very helpful tip for photographers who are just starting now and they think that by going high or low they can get the perfect angle/perspective especially when photographing models.