Street Focus 65: Q&A and Street Challenge

I thought I’d take a stab at the questions raised about lens distortion. (Please chime in for any corrections!):

My guess for the question Valerie raised about the 28mm equiv. wide angle conversion lens for the x100, is that by adding more lens elements to the 35mm equiv., it helps correct the distortion found in the original compact lens (sort of like giving a person eye glasses to correct their vision). FujiFilm optical engineers probably were tasked to make the camera as compact as possible, which likely made trade-offs in the lens design. If they were allowed to make the 35mm equiv. lens bigger and more complex, the x100 would likely have a more distortion free lens.

But the distortion that Valerie brought up, might be some kind of barrel distortion inherent from the lens design. The physics distortion mentioned by Chris, sounds like the natural distortion found in wide angle lenses. When you choose a lens wider than 50mm equiv. objects appear unusually larger the closer they are to the film/sensor focal plane. Also, objects at the corners tend to appear stretched.

I enjoy making portraits, so I tend to stick to 50mm, 85mm, 135mm+. But when traveling or documenting a scene, I’ll go for any of the wide angle lenses (e.g. 20mm, 24mm, 28mm, etc.). When shooting people with a wide angle, it’s best to keep them close to center in the frame, and keep your distance reasonably far. You can always crop a wide angle lens to get the view angle of the traditional portrait lenses, to make people look more flattering.

Thank you for all of the great podcasts this year. This is my entry into “The Human Element in the Urban Landscape.”

For the Human Element in the Urban Landscape.
‘Levels’
Musemum of Islamic Art, Doha. Fujifilm X-T1.