On 23 Jan 2003 00:39:16 GMT, contaxman@aol.comnospam (Lewis Lang) wrote:

>BIG SNIPS

>

>>(It was amusing

>>to see an old painting once which presented a wide angle of

>>view of a courtyard with a row of columns with arches on top

>>on the right side. Most of the image followed the rules

>>of rectangular perspective, but the arches were

>>progressively rendered more in spherical perspective as

>>the edge of view was approached. The painter obviously knew

>>how to draw the arches "correctly" in rectangular

>>perspective, but just as obviously, he decided to modify

>>the shapes that would have otherwise looked "wrong",

>>regardless of the conventions...) I think it is useful for

>>people to understand how they see, so that they can resolve

>>issues of "distortion" themselves, if they wish (or they can

>>just keep shooting with a 50mm, if they don't...;-).

>Interesting... Do you have any links to this painting (perhaps it is on a web

>page)? If not, perhaps you can remember/tell us the name of the artist and the

>title of the picture?

No. It hangs in the upstairs hallway of Morgan Hall at

Wells College, where I taught photography ever so many

years ago...;-)

>On a related side note, I believe some old masters used to do a variation(s) on

>perspective too. In literal reality, Reubens (hope I'm remembering the right

>artist, or perhaps it was Delacroix?) had a figure (a woman's body?) turned one

>way followed by a swath of cloth that covered her naughty bits (though I find

>these to be nice bits) followed by the bottom of her body turned at an angle

>that would have been physically impossible if it were in reality w/ a real

>woman, and impossibly to pull off had the "magicians trick"/sleight of hand of

>the robe had not been there to cover up ("literally!" in this case!) the

>perspective deception. I believe some of either Michael Angelo's, Titian's, and

>(even more abstractly) Botero's, Modigliani's and Picasso's figures also had

>impossible if not unlikely proportions (if not perspectives) that still seemed

>"more than right" when we view them with our hearts rather thanour minds/a

>ruler. Believability is more important than literal exactitude whether it

>refers to perspective and/or body proportion. It is the deviation from the

>normal that fires our imaginations and makes a piece (work of art) "live".

Often - but my point was that what people often call

"distortions" really are not, given the way we really

see as opposed to the conventional view that we see

in rectangular perspective...;-)

>>BTW, if

>>you place a full-frame fisheye lens on a camera in place of

>>a rectangular-perspective super-wide, you may note a few

>>things: the forground-to-background object relative

>>proportions change, favoring the fisheye for looking

>>"natural"; if you place rounded objects in the field that

>>can be viewed with both lens types, these will look more

>>normally rendered near the edges with the fisheye; if you

>>tilt the view upward and look at the renderings of

>>parallel vertical lines on normal-distance/normal-height

>>buildings, they are shown more nearly parallel in the

>>fisheye view; if you place very long straight lines

>>off-center in the fields of view, the

>>rectangular-perspective lens will look more natural

>>(though it isn't - we see these lines as curved, much

>>as people resist this idea...!;-); if you limit the coverage

>>of both lens types to that of a 50mm, the images from

>>both will look quite similar...

>> David Ruether

>Also quite interesting...

>This post (those parts written by me at least ;-)) is...

>

>© 2003 Lewis Lang

>All Rights (and Zeiss fisheye lenses) Reserved

>Regards,

>Lewis

I don't know if that is possible, given the very public

nature of this forum, and the fact that much of it is

archived as a matter of course by many (including me),

under the assumption that public postings of this sort

cannot be reserved from duplication, just as the public

statements of a curbside minister, politician, etc.

probably cannot be copyrighted. I could easily be very

wrong on this. Does Paul Tauger have an opinion?;-)