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Frame Width vs. Translating the Camera

LosingSignalLosingSignal Posts: 409
in The Commons

After finally discovering the usefulness of the Focal Length setting on Cameras, I was wondering if there is an appreciable difference between moving the camera closer or further away vs changing the Frame Width setting to get an image properly framed.  I'm running a few test renders right now, but those will take a while.  Is there a technical difference between the two techniques?

Comments

  • L'AdairL'Adair Posts: 9,479

    @LosingSignal, Moving the camera forward and back is much like stepping forward or back with your camera in the real world. And when you can't step back any further because of a wall, you'll get more of the room in the shot if you use the lens to get the wide angle. Or when you can't step any closer to an animal in the zoo because of the railings, you use the lens to zoom in.

    Using the Frame Width, (and Focal Length,) in the Camera's "Camera" settings are like using the camera lens to zoom in close, or zoom out for a wide angle shot.

     

  • benniewoodellbenniewoodell Posts: 1,999
    The lens changes the way the image looks. If you have it at 85mm and go up close it won't be distorted, but put it to like 5-20mm and go close and it'll start to fisheye. Also the higher the mm, the better depth of field you'll get. Go to the library and pick up any book on cinematography or photography, those principles correlate directly with the use of lights and cameras here!
  • LosingSignalLosingSignal Posts: 409

    I guess what I was getting at is that if the Focal Length helps "flatten" out the image, does altering the image with Frame Width undo that?  Or is Frame Width more or less a zoom feature?

  • Matt_CastleMatt_Castle Posts: 3,004
    LosingSignal said:

    I was wondering if there is an appreciable difference between moving the camera closer or further away vs changing the Frame Width setting to get an image properly framed.

    Yes. This is the difference between a close, wide camera, and a distant, narrow camera:

    ~~~~~

    As far as the difference between frame width and focal length, my understanding is that the difference in the result from changing one rather than the other is most significant with renders with a very high aspect ratio. I can't remember how it works out, I don't tend to render very wide images.

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