What focal length do mirrors reflect in?

S

Snapper123

Well-known member
Hey guys, this is something that seems to be effecting my take on things a great deal, but I've been taking some self-portraits and they look awful. I've used everything from 18mm to 135mm, yet all the pictures look the same - my face looks flat across and absolutely huge in dimension, with the portrait not capturing any of the sides of my head or the flattering dimension I see when I simply look into the mirror. So far, 18mm seems to capture nearer to the visual look as what I see when I see my own reflection in the mirror, once I stand farther away from the camera, but it doesn't truly do what I want. Actually, my computer webcam captures the exact look I see in the mirror, yet I have no clue what the focal length is for this cam - who knows, it's probably 8mm or something crazy.

Any input on this? Is what I'm capturing with my lenses what I actually look like in real life to the human eye (and if so, no kidding, I look deformed), or is what I see in the bathroom mirror/bedroom mirror/webcam closer to what people actually see me as?
 
Mirrors do not have a focal length, but they do affect the focal distance of the lens on your camera. Just picking numbers out of a hat, Suppose you are standing five feet in front of a mirror, and have a camera sitting ten feet from the mirror. Assume the camera is basically right beside you so we're not dealing with any angles.

Now, take your camera and focus it at 10 feet. It now has the mirror in perfect focus, but your reflection will be out of focus. While physically your reflection is on the surface of the mirror, optically it is not. There is an "apparent image" of you five feet behind the mirror, matching your five feet in front of the mirror (assuming the mirror is flat). So to get an image of your reflection, you would need to compose and focus for this apparent image of you 15 feet away - 10 feet from the camera to the mirror, and five feet from the mirror to your apparent image.
 
No focal length but when pulling or measuring focus distance when using a mirror you have to measure from your gate/sensor to the mirror and the to the subject that is reflected in the mirror. I know for the inexperienced this sounds strange but it is true. Try it sometime.
 
Snapper123 said:
Hey guys, this is something that seems to be effecting my take on things a great deal, but I've been taking some self-portraits and they look awful. I
Click to expand...

Yeah, I've noticed that a lot, where the bathroom items around the sink are in sharp focus, but the person in the mirror is blurry as hell...


But the measure required for the distance from subject to mirror, then mirror to camera. If it is a self portrait then 'focusing distance' is 2x the distance from you to the mirror.
 
Guys I don't think that's what he's talking about. Correct me if I'm misunderstanding, but I think he's trying to shoot a self portrait with his camera, no mirrors involved, but he's not getting the look he wants. He's trying try to achieve the same look he gets with his webcam or when looking in the mirror, but isn't getting the right look he wants.

To the OP: Still a little lost with what problem you're having. Maybe you could post a pic, so someone could help you figure out what you're wanting to do differently.
 
Well, see, I'm not trying to take a picture of me in the mirror (I do that already if I want a flattering portrait!!!), I'm talking about like me sitting a dozen or so feet from the camera itself and clicking the remote - just a normal self portrait say in a studio, no mirrors. When I do this, it makes me look like an alien/creature compared to the normal facial appearance I see when I look in the mirror or use my webcam - to be honest, I'm terrified that what my lenses are seeing is what people see me as in real life...

Like, just say I'm taking a portrait of someone else and they ask me to replicate exactly what another human eye would see their face as, say, exactly what their boyfriend would see when he is sitting across from them at a dinner date - say they truly just wanted to have a realistic judgement of how bad or good they look like to their dinner date at that conversation distance, no fancy facial compression or whatnot that the human eye wouldn't have. What would be the focal length and distance from the camera that I should snap the shot? And I don't mean like depth of field or background distortion, really just wanting to know which focal length will make the face look like what the close-up human eye would see.

P.S. Like this - http://i582.photobucket.com/albums/ss261/subaru2003/P7080001.jpg - is the type of perception I'm getting from self-portraits (this person is not me), and I'm getting it even with 135mm - not pretty. Yet shouldn't 135mm be what the human eye sees from a distance, just "cropped" so to speak? Shoudn't it be "flattering." Or is what I see in the mirror closer to the cropped 8mm-ish focal length of a camcorder/webcam? No focal length seems to replicate all the flattering "structured but compressed" goodness (not "flat and compressed") I see in mirrors and webcams, and I love that aesthetic for me and my subjects!! It's a type of look I've always wanted to put into my films and I'm having such a hard time finding out exactly how to replicate it with a camera - and if it's even a realistic look, for that matter.

Another 135mm portrait that seems to look very alien - http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4073/4873667057_4c9059f34b_b.jpg

THIS is nearer to what I'm looking for - http://www.philhackettphotography.com/img/s5/v4/p738592453-4.jpg - something that really contours the face and doesn't squeeze the sides of the head or alien-ate the front of the eyes - AND this - http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3505/3865477225_7b51651785_m.jpg
 
Last edited:
Snapper123 said:
Well, see, I'm not trying to take a picture of me in the mirror (I do that already if I want a flattering portrait!!!), I'm talking about like me sitting a dozen or so feet from the camera itself and clicking the remote - just a normal self portrait say in a studio, no mirrors. When I do this, it makes me look like an alien/creature compared to the normal facial appearance I see when I look in the mirror or use my webcam - to be honest, I'm terrified that what my lenses are seeing is what people see me as in real life...
Click to expand...

There's more going on in human visual perception than just 'simple' optics. In terms of 'still' work, the usual rule of thumb I've used, and was given to me, was a 'portrait' lens should be 2x the 'normal' lens length. So for still 35mm if 50mm is the 'normal', then 100mm would be a 'portrait' lens length.

The human processing 'distorts' things relative to what the camera records. This is why that 'beautiful' shot when you are 'there', looks quite dull in the photos.
 
j1clark@ucsd.edu said:
There's more going on in human visual perception than just 'simple' optics. In terms of 'still' work, the usual rule of thumb I've used, and was given to me, was a 'portrait' lens should be 2x the 'normal' lens length. So for still 35mm if 50mm is the 'normal', then 100mm would be a 'portrait' lens length.

The human processing 'distorts' things relative to what the camera records. This is why that 'beautiful' shot when you are 'there', looks quite dull in the photos.
Click to expand...

Correct but for some reason it was decided years ago that 85mm was the perfect portrait lens for 35mm. Anyone have any insight on this?
 
phudsontx said:
Correct but for some reason it was decided years ago that 85mm was the perfect portrait lens for 35mm. Anyone have any insight on this?
Click to expand...

I don't know, I use to shoot my 4x5 with a 210mm lens, where as the 'normal' based on the film's diagonal would be about 145 or so. The 2x would be 300, which some people did use for portraiture, but
others, like myself would use the 210. In my case it was a compromize... I could only buy one lens... and it had to do all... eventually I did get a 90mm Super Angulon for architectural subjects.

The Wife prefers a 105mm on a 35mm still, which she thinks is more 'flattering' than the shorter lengths, but doesn't 'flatten' the depth so much like a longer telephoto would. She would use 150mm on the Hasselblad for portraiture, as opposed to the 80mm 'normal'.
 
I guess I good question would be - what focal lengths to paparazzi's usually use when snapping Red Carpet photos? All these photos seem to come out beautiful with no alien-esque distortion on the actors' faces.
 
Snapper123 said:
I guess I good question would be - what focal lengths to paparazzi's usually use when snapping Red Carpet photos? All these photos seem to come out beautiful with no alien-esque distortion on the actors' faces.
Click to expand...

From a number of shots of the photogs at such events, it seems there's a preponderance of Canon's with a Canon Zoom lens, pretty identifiable in the picture below. I count at least 5 Canons with the zoom lens just in the right edge of the picture alone.

Many of the photogs have multiple cameras as well, so that they are not fiddling with settings or lenses to get any shot they can. In the olden days for weddings I'd usually have 2 or three cameras with B&W, Color ISO 400 and Color ISO 1600, depending.

As a interesting note that... a number of the photogs in this shot appear to be shooting at something other than the couple right in front of them...


paparazzi1.jpg
 
I did a shoot a couple months ago with Bill Clinton and Tony Blair. All but 3 of the Photographers used some form of 1d with various Mid to Tele L Lenses.

Side note the none Canons were 1 Nikon, 1 Leica M9 and one very old dude with a cheap point and shoot. He could not figure out how to turn the flash off and it was a no flash event. The other guys were freaking out because one bad Apple could get them all tossed.

1.jpg


2.jpg


Back to topic. If you are using crop sensor I suggest a 55 or 85 prime.
 
phudsontx said:
Correct but for some reason it was decided years ago that 85mm was the perfect portrait lens for 35mm. Anyone have any insight on this?
Click to expand...

A lens in the 80-90mm range to me renders depth most naturally regardless of format size. Even on my 1/3" GL2 where that is long telephoto it just has a magical dimensional quality for rendering depth perspective.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top