Some people are beautiful, but the photos they take are always not good-looking, so they say "not photogenic" Ha ha, I thought about this question for a long time, and finally found the answer through my own photography experience and consulting relevant materials:
1, a beautiful face needs the close and organic cooperation of people's five senses, and a little disorder will greatly reduce the beautiful face. It is often said that some people have good facial features, but they don't look good together. It seems that not only the five senses are better, but also their collocation and proportion are very important. In ancient China, the proportion requirement for handsome men was "three courts and five eyes";
2. Is the photo taken a real face? To be sure, 90% did not reflect the original appearance, but deformed! ! This deformation destroys the delicate proportion of the five senses, makes beautiful women ugly, and of course makes some ugly ones look better than reality;
3. Why is photography deformed?
This deformation is called perspective in photography:
We have seen all the close-up portraits taken with wide-angle lenses, in which the nose of the subject is surprisingly large compared with other organs of the face. This is a feature of perspective distortion in many photos taken with wide-angle lenses.
In order to understand the cause of this distortion, let's first discuss the normal perspective. As we all know, one way for our eyes to feel distance is to use the relative size of an object, and the brain will tell us that the farther an object is, the smaller it appears. In photography, the same method is used to determine the perspective relationship. Objects in the distance are smaller than those of the same size nearby. For this reason, when we look far away, parallel trajectories will get closer and closer until they converge. The essence of this phenomenon is that the distance between rails becomes smaller on the surface. Another manifestation of perspective is that the closer the object is, the stronger the perspective effect is. For example, 200 soldiers marched in a row. If you watch or photograph the parade at a distance of 10 feet from the soldier in front, the soldier in front will appear much taller than the last soldier. However, if you watch or photograph the same team at a distance of 100 meters from the soldier in front, the size difference between the first soldier and the last soldier will not be so big.
To sum up, in reality, our eyes can eliminate this perspective distortion through life experience, while the camera is not so intelligent and can only be copied, so the soldiers photographed are all tall before and short after, and we can roughly judge the height of the soldiers before and after through life experience.
4. How to avoid this deformation? This is determined by photography, that is, the principle of lens, which can't be corrected basically and can only be minimized;
So why are wide-angle lenses often the source of distorted perspective, such as the weird nose in the example? Because wide-angle lenses are often shot very close to the subject, the closer the shooting distance, the stronger the perspective effect. The reason is that simple.
In other words, if all lenses are used at the same distance, the wide-angle lens will not distort the perspective more than any other lens. In fact, it is not difficult to prove this through experiments. Shoot a row of columns or a row of trees or any row of objects with lenses with different focal lengths. All the photos are taken at the same position, and then enlarge the same part of each image in order to get the same size image in the photos. Finally, no matter what the focal length of the lens is, the perspective effect of any photo will not be different. The reason is that the shooting distance of all photos is the same, that is, the distance from the subject to the lens is the same.
Now, let's go back to the problem of weird big nose in close-up portraits. The tip of a person's nose is about 1 inch closer to the lens than other parts of the face. Because the closer the subject is, the bigger it will appear, so the nose will appear disproportionately larger than other parts of the face when it is close to shooting. So, why does a wide-angle lens make this distortion more obvious? Because in order to make people feel full of pictures, the wide-angle lens must be very close to the subject. For any kind of lens, this distortion will occur when it is very close to the subject to a certain extent. The closer to the main body, the more serious the distortion. It is precisely because I want the subject to fill the picture that I have just entered the distortion range of the wide-angle lens.
5. how to reduce it? Can it be reduced with a standard fixed-focus lens? Don't! But you can choose a combination of lens and focal length to minimize distortion:
Let's check this series of photos we have seen and observe the parts of the nose carefully. Which photo has the best nose ratio? The nose of the photos taken by 24mm and 35mm lenses is obviously too big; The 50mm "standard" lens still seems a little big; The 85mm lens captured beautiful images without perspective distortion, and so did the135mm lens. This is our choice. Perhaps any lens between 85mm and 135mm can be used as a "portrait" lens. As for the specific value, it is a personal preference.
What about a lens with a longer focal length, such as 150mm or 200mm? Although we can't show their photos here, the result of their flat faces is definitely unpleasant unless the subject's nose is very high. For the conventional portrait, it is still necessary to insist that the lens is within the range of 85-135 mm.
So, how to take good-looking photos? To sum up:
1, first look at the distance between the photographer and you. If it is close, please keep him away. If it is too close, it will only produce distortion and exaggeration. When I took photos of my ID card and graduation photo, I used a small digital camera at close range, which can only be said to undermine the seriousness of my ID card and diploma!
2. It is best to ask the photographer to use the focal length between 80- 135 mm, at which you can truly restore yourself. The principle is that photographers should stay away from you, hehe; I remember shooting graduation photo (1995) with a camera from a very old movie. I got the most satisfying and authentic photo, but it was black and white, and now I can't find it.
3. If your face is wide, stay away from the camera to avoid barrel distortion and make your face fatter. If you think your face is narrow, get closer to the camera and make full use of the barrel distortion to make your little face bigger. If you dislike your nose too much, use a 200mm telephoto lens to flatten your face.
When taking pictures, it is best not to face the camera directly. It's better to have 3/7 faces. People in China have flat faces, which are not suitable for facing the camera. Take a closer look at the photos of some stars, especially the photos of beautiful women in the Republic of China. Even now, few stars have the courage to "face the camera". Moreover, most people in foreign countries are generally half-faced, which makes the already three-dimensional face more profound. I have also seen Jiang Jingguo.
If there is obvious perspective and distortion, the latest Photoshop can correct some distortion.
6. Expensive fixed-focus lens can't eliminate distortion, but it can get valuable large aperture, which can show its talents in the case of low light and blurred background.