distortion

Lens Hoods Can Ruin Photos Taken in Cold Weather

Photographer Steve Perry was out photographing snowy owls with his wife when they both realized that something seemed off about their photos: they were soft. After some testing, he realized that the culprit might be his lens hood.

Lenses Don’t Cause Perspective Distortion and ‘Lens Compression’

The focal length of lenses doesn't cause perspective distortion, which is often explained as "lens compression." Period. Now before you call me crazy and dismiss whatever I have to say, I’d like to invite you to take a dive into how lenses work and what actually causes perspective distortion.

Venus Optics Releases 4mm f/2.8 Fisheye Lens with 210° Field of View

Venus Optics has been slowly releasing the four lenses it teased back in April of 2018. We saw the 10-18mm f/4.5-5.6 for Sony E-Mount in October, the 100mm 2x Macro for full-frame DSLRs in June, and the 17mm f/4 Zero-D for Fuji GFX earlier this month. Today, they're officially releasing the last lens: the Laowa 4mm f/2.8 Circular Fisheye for Micro Four Thirds systems.

This is Why ‘Zooming with Your Feet’ Isn’t the Same Thing

"Zooming with your feet" means getting closer to your subject physically instead of relying on a longer lens, but you should be aware that the results you won't be the same. Here's a 9-minute video from This Place that looks at how different focal lengths affect perspective when compared to "zooming with your feet."

This is How a Camera Adds 10 Pounds

It's commonly said that a camera adds 10 pounds, making you look heavier than you actually are. Here's a striking animated GIF that shows how much the focal length of a lens affects your apparent weight in a portrait.

This is How Cameras Glitch with Photos of Propellers

If you've ever photographed spinning airplane propeller or helicopter rotor blades with your smartphone, you may have found that the spinning blades were turned into bizarre shapes in the resulting photo. What you're seeing is distortion caused by a rolling shutter, when a CMOS sensor captures a scene by scanning across it very quickly rather than capturing the entire frame at once.

Glitché App Intentionally Distorts Photos Into ‘Works of Digital Art’

Aberrations, distortions, corrupt images; all of these are things we typically try to avoid in the world of digital photography. But the Glitché app does the exact opposite. Instead of trying to remove digital imperfections from your photos, the app piles specific distortions on, and in the process turns your pristine pics into "works of digital art" ... at least that's what they're calling them.

Using a Prism for Creative Photo Effects

Have you ever considered adding a prism to your camera bag? Washington DC-based wedding photographer Sam Hurd has done quite a bit of experimentation using an equilateral prism -- the kind used in schools to teach properties of light -- to add special effects to his photographs. The results are pretty interesting.

How Focal Length and Subject Distance Affect Weight… As Seen with a Cat

We've written a couple of times in the past on how you can achieve drastically different portrait looks by choosing different lens focal lengths and subject distances. Basically, your choice of glass can make a huge impact on what your subject's face looks like... and how much they appear to weigh.

Reddit user Popocuffs wanted to demonstrate this, but instead of using a human subject, he used his cat.