Michael Langford in his book: Basic photography (Langford M, 1977:78-79) discusses the use of different focal lengths for bringing in different perspectives to the photographed image. He uses the example given below to talk about how changing both focal length and distance from the image to bring about changes in the distant and near elements within the frame.
The ability to be optically true to the subject according to the eye or to distort the true image is then related to the lens focal length more than the angle of view. A 28mm lens will yield quite a different image compared to the the 150mm lens. 50mm lens is seen as the equivalent to the human eye angle of view.
‘You can use steep perspective (close viewpoint wide-angle lens) whenever you want to exaggerate distance or caricature a face into a big nose and tiny ears, or dramatically emphasise some foreground item such as an aggressive fist by exaggerating its relative size.’
Comment on above
Langfords diagram of three images at different focal lengths proved useful for seeing just how visually different these images are depending on the perspective.
References: Langford M, Basic photography: 1977 (focal press 6th edition)
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