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Does this selfie make my nose look big? Yes:
Taking selfies at a distance of about 12 inches from the face increases perceived nose size by nearly 30%, according to a report published Thursday in the journal JAMA Facial Plastic Surgery [DOI: 10.1001/jamafacial.2018.0009] [DX].
Researchers now are cautioning that patients interested in cosmetic procedures should not turn to self-photographs as guidance when considering making changes to their faces. "Patients, people, even my family have to be aware that if you're taking a selfie, it's not really how you look," said Dr. Boris Paskhover, a facial plastics and reconstructive surgeon at Rutgers New Jersey Medical School and a leading author on the study. "Selfies make your nose look wider and thicker when it really isn't, and people like a smaller nose," Paskhover added. "My fear is that the generation out there now doesn't know. All they know is the selfie."
Also at EurekAlert and The Verge.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Grishnakh on Friday March 02 2018, @02:39PM (21 children)
Do these people not know how to use a simple mirror, or even have one in their bathroom? If you want to see what you look like, you look in a flat mirror. Doesn't everyone understand this, and that cameras take distorted photos at close range? Anyone that clueless shouldn't have enough spare cash to see plastic surgeons.
(Score: 5, Interesting) by fyngyrz on Friday March 02 2018, @03:07PM (18 children)
That's not correct (and goes a ways towards answering your question — the "common knowledge" here is vague at best.)
Cameras don't. Wide angle lenses (which is generally what are in a phone) do; but a lens just under 50mm equivalent can give you the same visual field that your eye will. It would be nice if these multiple-lens/sensor cameras started throwing a 50mm equivalent lens on the screen side of the camera for the self-obsessed.
Basically, if I shoot you with a 50mm prime lens using my Canon DSLR, you'll look pretty much like you do in that mirror. If I shoot you with a 24mm prime, I'd have to be very careful about both angle and distance to see that you're not grossly distorted.
(Score: 1, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Friday March 02 2018, @03:21PM (1 child)
That is Grishnakh, right? You apparently have some kind of magic lens to remove gross distortion?
(sorry Grishnakh - I couldn't resist such an obvious opening for an insult)
(Score: 5, Funny) by Grishnakh on Friday March 02 2018, @04:20PM
I am extremely offended by your insinuation that we Orcs are somehow unattractive as a race. We are an attractive, intelligent, peaceful, and technological race of beings who has been demonized as literal monsters by the evil, imperialistic forces of Gandalf and the Elves.
(Score: 2) by VLM on Friday March 02 2018, @03:36PM (8 children)
Well... there's budget cell phone camera lenses and then there's a 7D back with a Sigma (off brand, but good, arguably better than genuine Cannon) F1.4 35mm lens. There's around three orders of magnitude in cost and exotic optical engineering between those two. And a similar factor in mass and volume. So phone selfies are always going to look awful compared to what contemporary people have come to expect as "normal" quality. Maybe someday people will be taking serious astrophotography photos with cell phones ... but not today.
Note that even if you eventually upgrade to a kilobuck lens eventually, you still have to stop it down quite a bit f/4, sometimes worse, to get sensor-limited performance out of it. So its possible in a very dark room a cell phone might take a pix almost as good as semi-pro gear, but in a normal bright room the semi-pro gear with a stopped down lens is going to crush the cell phone cam.
(Score: 2) by fyngyrz on Friday March 02 2018, @03:45PM (6 children)
35mm not really what you usually want for this; the actual FOV and scene distortion of the human eye is more closely approximated by a lens about halfway between 35mm and 50mm (43 mm). [petapixel.com]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday March 02 2018, @04:04PM (2 children)
So Canon pancake 40mm lens should do it.
(Score: 2) by bob_super on Friday March 02 2018, @06:58PM (1 child)
Which is why ~100mm is the best lens for portraits. Pros learnt how to make people look better long before photoshop existed.
(Score: 2) by Nuke on Friday March 02 2018, @07:42PM
[for a 35mm format camera]
Yes, for a head only shot, otherwise that is a bit too long. In film days the major camera makers promoted an 85mm focal length [pentaxforums.com] for portrait use.
Actually, any lens gives the same perspective as the human eye does from the same distance. It is just that with a wider angle lens the photographer needs to get closer to "fill the frame" with a head, say, so introducing the perspective "distortion" as well as crowding the sitter. It is just a fact that the perspective from a longer distance (known to photographers as a "flat" perspective), even when enlarged, is more pleasing.
As for 43mm focal length lenses, that is the diagonal of a 35mm film frame (do the Pythagoras), which according to some gives the natural persective of the human eye. I believe it is more complex than that as the human eye's field of view just fades and deteriorates towards the indistict edges.
(Score: 2) by VLM on Friday March 02 2018, @09:11PM (2 children)
mmm. I was just reading off whats on my shelf over the desk. With the point that fast glass is going to be huge, heavy, and expensive compared to a cell phone. My whole phone weighs less than that lens and I have a phablet. Although I agree with you thats a wide-ish lens.
Is "fast glass" contemporary photographer speak or am I sounding old? I mean lens with lower minimum USABLE F stop. Note that there's plenty of lens sold that can be set to a low F but that comes with unusably low F stop resulting in horrible aberrations. Which kind of circularizes the argument... pics don't HAVE to be as ugly as tiny cell phone cameras generate...
For non-optical people, a pinhole camera is pretty much always in focus but is really dim, exotic tricks with glass lenses does the same thing as a pinhole but MUCH brighter, with the tradeoff of distortion and smaller range of focus, typical engineering tradeoff where exotic glass (literally, like weird flourites in the old days) gives better performance with enough engineering work. There's actually a very interesting telescope book on this topic, a textbook, hundreds of pages, but I can't find my copy.
(Score: 2) by fyngyrz on Friday March 02 2018, @11:33PM (1 child)
Seems perfectly contemporary to me, but then, I am old. :)
Also, it's a vey low quality sensor compared to a good DSLR. No matter what, it simply doesn't have the area to seriously compete with a RAW file out of the 7D or my 6D. When quality matters, it's not the phone I turn to. Detail can be an issue as well. So far, phones are behind in sensor site density.
Agreed. I routinely take my cell phone pics into my photo app [ourtimelines.com] and un-distort / un-rotate them, adjust levels, crop, etc. Then there's Lightroom, Aperture, Photoshop, Gimp, etc.
Going to pull the trigger on a Galaxy S9 shortly; that's because of the new camera capabilities. Looks like a bunch of fun. I have all manner of DSLR glass, a Canon 6D, tripods, etc., etc., etc. But many times, phone is handy, bang, done. Plus some images... the fine quality issues just don't matter. Turns out a jar of pickles is unexpectedly awesome? Snap a shot of the brand / style and stuff it in the gallery for recall later. Saves on spare neurons.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by VLM on Sunday March 04 2018, @04:31PM
Never take mechanical things apart without taking a zillion pictures of the process. This turns jobs that used to be a real bear, into life on easy mode.
(Score: 2) by fyngyrz on Friday March 02 2018, @03:46PM
...and also, 35mm on a 7D is 35mm against a non-35mm sensor, so 43mm isn't exactly correct there, either.
43mm is the right-ish number for a FF sensor.
(Score: 2) by zocalo on Friday March 02 2018, @03:37PM
UNIX? They're not even circumcised! Savages!
(Score: 2) by Grishnakh on Friday March 02 2018, @04:25PM
Cameras don't. Wide angle lenses (which is generally what are in a phone) do; but a lens just under 50mm equivalent can give you the same visual field that your eye will.
Sorry I was imprecise, but that's the point: cellphone cameras are always wide-angle. People don't shoot selfies with real cameras.
(Score: 0, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Friday March 02 2018, @07:11PM (4 children)
The distortion in question is perspective distortion and is entirely due to relative distance from the lens of various points in the frame. It has nothing at all to do with the lens though the lens can add additional distortion. You get big noses from perspective distortion whenever you shoot a face at arms distance with any camera and any lens.
(Score: 2) by VLM on Friday March 02 2018, @09:15PM (1 child)
Yet isn't that the same view you get of someone's big nose, which was the problem to begin with? Perhaps two eyes somehow help with parallax vs single lens camera. I guess from 100 yards there would be little relative distortion of snout size but at 100 yards do normal people check out someone's nostrils?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday March 04 2018, @07:08AM
RTFA, 5 feet is enough
(Score: 2) by fyngyrz on Friday March 02 2018, @11:37PM (1 child)
That's almost entirely incorrect.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday March 03 2018, @08:31AM
Nope, it doesn't matter what lens or camera you use, the perspective distortion is the same. It is entirely due to the relative distance to the lens of various points in the frame. RTFA d00d.
(Score: 3, Funny) by Snospar on Friday March 02 2018, @03:09PM
Damn right! I always take my selfies in front of the mirror and the camera obscuring my face is always perfectly proportioned.
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(Score: 2) by Bot on Friday March 02 2018, @05:01PM
meatbag, you are not perfectly symmetric like us bots, so when you look in the mirror you see your mirrored image, which explains why people tended to dislike their face in photos.
Account abandoned.