CONCLUSION

You have now seen how perspective is important for landscapes, architectural photography, portraits, etc. Here is the summary for you to remember easily:

Perspective essentially deals with relative size of foreground and background elements in an image.

It is independent of focal length.

It is dependent on the subject distance.

If you want to make the foreground elements larger compared to the background elements you need to move closer to the foreground elements and to make them smaller you need to move away. Simply changing the focal length, either by zooming or by using a lens of different focal length, will not help. You must use your feet to change the

perspective.

Even while keeping the foreground subject size the same, you can exercise great control on the area of background recorded in the image by using lenses of different focal length. A shorter focal length lens will give you wider coverage of the background. On the other hand you can use a longer focal length to record lesser background area. (Compare Pictures 3 and 4). (Of course you need to increase the subject distance to keep the subject size the same when you use a longer focal length lens). Often it is said that using fixed focal length (prime) lenses will improve one’s photography as it will force you to move rather than simply remain stationary and zoom. This statement, in the author’s opinion, is only partly true. What will really improve your photography is a thorough understanding of perspective. This will help you to get the right effect. If you want to keep the relative size of elements same but increase or decrease the overall image size then you must change focal length, either by zooming or by changing lenses. On the other hand, if you want to change the relative size of the elements, then you must change the subject distance. There is simply no other way!