Smartphone Lens Distortion
We got to hang out with my cousin (actually my cousin's wife) who is recovering from knee and ACL surgery, and is getting pretty bored around the house. While we were there, she gave us an interesting lesson in phone-camera kens distortion. She graciously allowed me to use the demonstration pics she took, but asks you to please ignore her hair, which is in the "halfway-to-a-bob grow-out phase".
She studied photography and graphic design in college and because of this background with real cameras and lense she has been fascinated by the distortion of smartphone lenses. There is a lot of skewing that happens both on the X and Y axis. Hence, this experiment:
Photo 1 is taken in the mirror with the forward facing phone lens (and flipped horizontally to correct it).
The 2nd photo was taken with the camera lens facing her (i.e. the back of the phone).
Photo 3 was taken with the "selfie lens" where you see yourself on the phone screen.
Do you see how much distortion happens from one shot to the next? The most accurate picture is the one taken straight on in the mirror. But these don't even compare to a straight photo taken with a real camera. So the next time you think you look different in a selfie, it is because you don't actually look like that to anyone else, either.
The distortion seems most noticeable in the shape of the nose and the shape of the face. Selfie mode tends to make eyes look more enlarged too. Look just at the eyeglasses frames... they seem bigger in the 3rd shot. The face gets a kind-of elongated look as well.
She says you'll always get the best results on a true 50 mm portrait lens on a regular camera. It has the least distortions. But also remember that the only version of your own face that you know is always the mirror reverse image you see in a mirror. So all photos look backwards to our own eyes. But if you also get distortion from the lens it looks even more strange.
A lot of people also don't realize that the camera on the front of the phone is usually much less megapixel than the main one on the rear. I think the selfie camera also has a smaller sensor usually and that will have a huge impact on the quality of the photos it takes. I grew up in our darkroom with my dad, it is amazing what digital photography can do these days. It required so much more manual work back then.
That's really interesting. I can totally notice a difference between the three images. I never thought of lens distortion from phone cameras but it actually makes a lot of sense, especially comparing the back camera lens and the front selfie lense. Those two should be the most different because they are actually different lenses. Very cool post!
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