This article is from WeChat official account:Paperclip PaperClip (ID: papercliptv)< span class = "text-remarks">, author: Wan Yi, head of FIG Origin: IC photo
You may have had this experience: After washing up every day, when you see yourself in the mirror, you can’t help but sigh: Where is this pretty boy?
However, once I saw you in the back of other people’s mobile phones and SLR cameras, my face instantly became bigger and I couldn’t help but start to doubt my true appearance.
Let us discuss today, why do you always not take pictures?
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Before starting the discussion, we must first define what “photogenic” is.
The non-photographic discussion here refers to whether there is a gap between you in the mirror or in the eyes of others and the photo. Photogenic means that your face can withstand the changes brought about by the lens, but not vice versa. It has nothing to do with who looks better in the photo-even if someone’s photo looks better than you, the TA may not be on the camera because the TA himself looks better.
This problem can be broken down into many factors, such as human facial structure, light, and lens distortion.
The most important thing is your face first. This is cruel and true. Because any imaging means to freeze the three-dimensional you in a two-dimensional image, at this time, your facial contour is an important factor in determining whether you are on the mirror.
Front face and side face shots have different requirements for facial structure.
Let’s talk about the frontal photo first. The picture below is an ideal beauty model established by American plastic surgery expert Stephen Marquardt using the golden ratio, called Marquardt mask(Marquardt Phi Mask), and It is said that this model is suitable for all species, and the face that fits this model is a photogenic face.
Contemporary beauty | beautyanalysis
Of course, although the face that conforms to the contour of the model is beautiful and photogenic, it is not enough to summarize all the beautiful facial contours. You may have the problem of not being very photogenic, but this does not mean that it is not beautiful, and everything is not absolute.
In addition to the innate facial contour factor, the light when taking a photo is also related to whether you are photogenic or not.
The following animation shows the visual impact of light sources in different positions on the human face. Perhaps everyone has played the game of “pretending to be a ghost” with a flashlight when they were young. This is an extreme visual effect caused by light.
The influence of light sources from different angles on facial visual effects
If you are the kind of person who has a slightly wider mandible and thinks that you are not photogenic, then the following method is worth learning. This lighting method is called butterfly light, also called Paramount light, and was favored by early Hollywood.
This lighting method is to place the main light source above the optical axis of the lens, that is, directly in front of the character’s face, projecting from the top to the bottom 45° to the character’s face, the overall shape resembling a butterfly.
Its most obvious effect is that it can converge the cheeks and bring layers to the character’s facesense. In addition, it can form a clear inverted triangle shadow directly under the nose, which can make the nose look more three-dimensional and hide the flesh on both sides of the cheeks.
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Actually, everyone under the lens will be distorted compared to their own, but the lens changes the size of each person’s face. After talking about individual differences, let’s take a look at the inherent problems of camera equipment.
The mechanism of camera imaging is to freeze a vivid and three-dimensional person from a three-dimensional space on a two-dimensional plane. This will inevitably cause lens distortion problems.
Lens distortion is a general term for the inherent perspective distortion of optical lenses, that is, distortion caused by perspective. A cruel fact is that the distortion caused by the inherent characteristics of the lens cannot be eliminated but can only be improved.
The degree of lens distortion depends on the focal length of the lens. The impact of the focal length on the image is reflected in two important aspects: one is how many scenes are displayed (angle of view); the other is the size of the object (the degree of enlargement to them).
The camera lens can be divided into standard according to its focal lengththe result of.
In other words, under a telephoto lens, you may think that you are not very photogenic. Under a wide-angle lens, you may feel that you look better, but under a standard lens of about 50 mm is the closest you are to the real you.
Stephen Eastwood, stepheneastwood.com
The above examples were all shot with SLR cameras. What about the mobile phones we use in our daily lives?
Mobile phones are generally equipped with wide-angle cameras with an equivalent focal length of about 25-28 mm and ultra-wide-angle cameras with 13-16 mm. Some mobile phones will also be equipped with telephoto and macro lenses. Since the wide-angle lens exists, there will still be barrel distortion. For example, when you take a selfie, it is difficult to see your ears, but your ID photo is clear. For example, when many people take a selfie together, the faces of classmates at the edges of the photo are often deformed.
Even if there is a distortion correction function, it cannot be improved 100%.
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Finally, we can come to the conclusion that whether a person is on the mirror or not requires a specific analysis of the facial structure, the distortion caused by the lens, and the light factor.
With relevant theoretical support, we can at least know that From the lens focal length, in theory, a portrait shot with a standard SLR lens will be closer to the real you than a mobile phone, that is, closer to the mirror. you.
But in this day and age, being close to reality may not be so important. If you meet a friend who says that he is not on camera, the choice of high EQ is not to take out a SLR and use a standard lens to take a standard image of TA, but to silently click on PS or Beauty App.
Reference material:
[1] Bashour, M.. (2006). An Objective System for Measuring Facial Attractiveness.
University of Toronto.
[2] London, B. & Stone, J.. (2019). The Secret Film and Digital Shooting Techniques of Photography Quick Start 9th Edition. p>
Peking University Press.
[3]NASIM MANSUROV. (2020). What is Lens Distortion?
https://photographylife.com/what-is-distortion
[4] Jesus Diaz. (2011). This Image Shows How Camera Lenses Beautify or Uglify Your Pretty Face.
https://gizmodo.com/this-image-shows-how-camera-lenses-beautify-or-uglify-y-5857279
[5] Sun Weijie. (2007). Talking about the impact of lens focal length technology on image modeling
School of Radio, Film and Television of Liaoning University.
This article is from WeChat official account:Paperclip PaperClip (ID: papercliptv)< span class = "text-remarks">, author: Wan Yi