Minimum distance for portrait

Can someone tell me what's the minimum distance I should stand with a

80mm Planar for a portrait without deforming the face of the person?

 

Tks for your help.

There's no hard and fast absolute rule, because different people have different facial structures, and photographers have different tastes for what perspective is preferred.

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But as general a rule of thumb for a formal portrait, somewhere around 6-10 feet is about as close as you normally should go. Note that the minimum acceptable distance has nothing to do with the lens, format, or camera. It's strictly a matter of the perspective you get from a particular viewpoint.

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Once you've established your portrait distance, then your lens focal length (combined with your film/sensor format) establishes the field of view that you'll capture at that distance. That's why, for tight headshots, most photographers use a longer than normal focal length lens.

That is a good question and one I've been asking myself for years. I think what one needs to determine is the distance one is comfortable shooting from. Some photogs here in Hollywood suggest shooting fashion, for example, with a 180mm (35mm format)lens. I think this is a wide distance. Others such as SKREBNESKI and Patrick Dermarchier (sp) work up close using 100 & 120mm lenses (MF). I think that 6-10 feet as suggested above is as good as any. Generally 6x6 is cropped, so I wouldn't go in to tight.

 

Lastly, remember that portraiture isn't all in your face kind of photog. It also includes 3/4 and full length shooting - check out August Sander.

 

For mine, I'm using a 60mm Distagon and I've forgone the head/shoulders type fotos for now. Best - Paul

Fernando,<br><br>The distance from which a face will look 'normal' is the same distance we usually see faces in 'real life'. Perspective is determined by distance only, and it doesn't matter whether you are looking through a camera or not, nor what lens you have on a camera.<br>So you do not have to rely on 'rules', just look around.

That is also why I get closer to children, then to most adults - we are used to look at children in a closer distance (say 1 meter, instead of 1.5).

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<a href="http://www.fotografiewimvanvelzen.nl">Wim</a>

>>The distance from which a face will look 'normal' is the same distance we usually see faces in 'real life'. Perspective is determined by distance only, and it doesn't matter whether you are looking through a camera or not, nor what lens you have on a camera.<<

 

It's not exactly that simple. What our eye/mind system perceives at different distances can be very different from what the lens captures and a piece of paper presents to that same mind/eye system.

 

We generally have to adjust the photographic parameters to avoid presenting discrepancies the eye/mind avoids perceiving in reality. We normally stand within 3-4 feet from a person we're having a conversation with, rarely do we actually look at anything more than the face, and while our peripheral vision may encompass half the body at that distance, we almost never "perceive" the entire view as a single whole.

 

When we see a photograph taken at the same distance with a lens that includes as much of an angle as our eyes, we are forced to perceive the entire view as a single whole. It looks unnatural because our minds always refused to perceive it that way.

 

I recently did a portrait of a couple in their living room. Because of the cramped space, I was positioned much closer than I'd normally be--about four feet. The woman was directly behind the man (her chest against his back), but because of the close distance, the resulting photograph very uncomfortably showed his head significantly larger than hers. I used Photoshop to enlarge her head 120% to equalize the difference and maintain the same relationship the human eye is comfortable with.

The standard wisdom agrees with what Kirk said.

 

There is a phenomenon called size constancy which affects how things look to us. The human visual system makes adjustments so we don't see things the way strict geomtric perspective would suggest. That means that you should put your subject something like 6 to 8 feet from you if you want the face to appear "normal". If, for example, the subject is only half that distance, facial features may appear exaggerated.

 

At least this is the conventional wisdom. That doesn't mean that you can never make a good portrait with the subject closer than 6 feet. But as a general fule you want the subject at a reasonable distance, and in order to magnify the subject, you need to use a longer focal length lens.

Kirk,<br><br>You are right.<br>But you are discussing things related to the angle of view. Not perspective.<br>Select <b>distance</b> for the <b>perspective</b> you want. Select <b>focal length</b> for the <b>angle of view / field of view</b> you want.<br><br>There is, of course, also the matter of print viewing distance, which complicates things a bit. Perspective in a print looks 'correct' only when the print is viewed at a distance equal to the focal length * the degree of magnification. But then, what's 'correct'?

Leonard,<br><br>The size constancy thing is more about our brains, knowing that similar things near and far have a similar size, though they do not appear similar in size on our retinas, will have us believe they actually appear similar in size nonetheless.<br>I don't think we photographers have to consider this phenomenon at all.

>>But you are discussing things related to the angle of view. Not perspective.

Select distance for the perspective you want. Select focal length for the angle of view / field of view you want.<<

 

Angle of view often counts when the view is wide enough and the object is large enough in the view its relative distance to the camera "changes" from one side to the other.