CHAPTER 4 HOW LIGHT PLAYS TRICKS ON PERCEPTION^55
Perspective is not a factor of distance alone. The picture of the cubes was taken delib-
erately with an extreme wide-angle lens to exaggerate the perspective distortion. A
normal or telephoto lens the same distance from the first box would not be able to
capture the same distortion because its angle of view is not as wide as that of a
wide-angle lens. In the example here of different angles of view for different focal
lengths, keep in mind that these are for 35mm film cameras. As you’ll see in a later
chapter, the same focal length gets different results from different digital cameras. A
wide-angle lens allows the photographer to get close enough to the front of the cube
so that the far side of the cube is twice as far from the lens as the front of the cube. If
the photographer stepped back 10 feet, the back of the cube would be only 0.06
times as distant from the camera compared to the cube’s front.3
Cameras with different focal lengths
shooting the same subject from the same
location will all produce pictures with the
same perspective. In the examples here,
photos are taken with (top to bottom)
wide-angle, normal, and telephoto
lenses. Notice that the pictures on the left
were all taken from the same location.
The mountains and Alcatraz Island
remain the same size, proportionately.
On the right, the photographer changed
positions so that Alcatraz remains the
same size in the picture frame, but the
mountains appear to grow.4
Lens Trickery in the Movies
Tricks using perspective are a staple in the movies. Anytime you see a car race or chase that involves cars weaving in and out
at high speed, notice that you’re looking at the race from behind or in front of the weaving cars, never from the side. The trick
here is to use a long lens from far away. Perspective seems to compress the space between cars, so that whenever one car
weaves in and out of traffic at breakneck speeds, it appears to be missing the other cars by inches, as demonstrated in the
photograph. If the chase were shot from the side—which it won’t be—you’d see that in actuality, there are several car lengths
between cars and the car doing all the weaving slips into places as easily as a supermodel trying on a fat lady’s dress.