[Thinking about AI Illustration] Things in the distance, coming closer | Telephoto lens

When you hear the term "telephoto lens," the first image that comes to mind is likely "pulling distant things closer."

When I actually used one, I found there was something more to it than just that.

🎨 What is a telephoto lens?

A telephoto lens is a lens with a long focal length. They are referred to by numbers such as 200mm, 300mm, and 600mm.

The basic characteristic is that things in the distance appear large. They are often used for purposes like photographing wild birds or capturing moments in sports.

In terms of prompts, writing "telephoto lens" or "200mm" will result in an image with this kind of texture.

However, it is not just about "distant things appearing large."

🎨 Depth is compressed

The first thing I noticed when using a telephoto lens was that the sense of depth changes.

This is a phenomenon called "compression effect." In other words, the distance between two objects in the distance appears shorter than it actually is.

For example, consider a scene where there is a dog in the foreground and a mountain in the background. If you look at it with a standard lens, the mountain looks far away and the dog looks close. But if you look at the same scene with a telephoto lens, the mountain and the dog start to look as if they are lined up on the same plane. The depth is crushed, and it feels like everything is being pushed to the same distance feel.

This is not a failure, but the very nature of a telephoto lens.

🎨 Things I tried

I drew "a path with trees and a building beyond it."

When I wrote "telephoto lens, 200mm, compressed perspective, tree-lined path, building in background," the resulting image looked as if the trees and the building were lined up at the same depth. The building that should be in the back looks like it is standing right behind the trees.

At first, I thought, "This feels a bit strange." I felt the sense of distance wasn't realistic.

But as I kept looking at it, I started to think that this works as an image in its own right. It is different from real space, but it feels like it has a density as a picture. I found that I actually liked that density to some extent.

🎨 Translating to prompts

Here are the prompts for specifying a telephoto lens.

telephoto lens, 200mm, compressed perspective, distant subject

`compressed perspective` is the keyword that dictates the compression effect. While this alone can sometimes produce the effect, combining it with `telephoto lens` makes it more stable and easier to achieve.

Increasing the value to `300mm` or `600mm` will result in stronger compression. It's a matter of adjusting the numbers based on how unrealistic you want the sense of depth to be.

🎨 Showing distance without closing the distance

I think the most interesting thing about a telephoto lens is that you can "show things up close while being far away."

I mentioned something similar regarding portrait lenses, but telephoto is even more extreme. You can create an image where a face is clearly visible even if you are 100 meters away from the subject. The physical distance and the sense of distance within the image are disconnected.

In terms of prompts, this also means "you can capture the main subject in a large size while still retaining the environment the subject is in." Instead of melting the background, you are pulling the background in with the subject.

I struggle a bit every time with how much to pull it in.
Well, it's fine.

Afterword

Thank you for reading this far.

Can a telephoto lens be used when you want to zoom in?
Personally, I didn't feel much of an effect.

Please feel free to use it if you'd like~

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