What Camera lenses do you use?

[gadzooks]

I was wondering what type of lenses you guys usually use to render with.
Now I know different shots may require different lenses. But usually I put a camera in my scene with a 35mm lenses move the camera and target to about 5'6" and render. Im asking this because my rendering seem to lack the punch some of you are getting with you cameras. I also know that good composition is probably 80 percent of a good rendering. But any help or ideas would be appreciated.

[tricky]

How do we respond to this?
Try a different lens.
If it looks more punchy, great.
If it doesn't, try something different.
C'mon fella!

[plastic_]

i just use the field-of-view navigation tool...who cares what lens it is...this is 3d...there are no real world restrictions.

[artykris]

i just use the field-of-view navigation tool...who cares what lens it is...this is 3d...there are no real world restrictions.

You`re right, but only partially, IMHO.
If we`re talking here about hi-fi-real renders, then the goal is to make CG look like a photograph.
So, to your composition "the photography rules" apply.
So the lower limitation to your lens is ~about 16-20mm, because that`s the widest angle of lens without distortion that you can get (generalising here of course .
But on the other hand there`s a general composition rule which says, that your right angles cannot appear as acute angles on your image, (when close to the camera), because that looks unnatural to the human eye.
So this time the second restriction appears - the human eye.
If you want something look natural and pleasing (and most of the time we`re doing visuals for clients, huh? then you have to consider those two restriction areas.

Basicly, this led me once to a conclusion, that the widest angle you can use is about 24mm. I tend not to use anything wider, (but reserving wider lenses for special-effect purposes .
And if you want something that looks just like it was seen through the human`s eyes then use a focal lenght of ~42mm - cause this preserves a perspective very similiar to what we see through our eyes.

So these are the basic rules about camera angle and of course, like with any other rules these can be also broken )))

I use:
- 24mm-28mm wide angle for interiors, where everything has to be shown;
- 35mm-40mm for general purpose architectural exterior views;
- 50mm-80mm for entrance details and so... ;
- sometimes 135mm for adjusting the scale of a huge buildings.

[archprog]

here is an article about cameras and perspective:

http://photoinf.com/General/Klaus_Sc...erspective.htm


and here there are a lot of articles about composition in general, i didn't go through it all but there might be more about cameras.
there are techniques for traditional illustration and photography composition explained there, but all of them i think can be useful for renderings.

http://photoinf.com/

[plastic_]

well i have a 12mm lens for my digital nikon, which equals 18mm in film.
it's a great lens for indoors and there is almost no barrel distortion. i don't feel the images look unnatural with it. sure, it's extreme perspective, but the goal of photography was always to capture things "bigger than life", i think.
besides, about every picture in architectual mags is extreme wide angle.
42mm may equal the human "sharp" area of view, but it's pretty much unuseable for indoors, it's way too narrow. also for outdoors in a tight urban situation.

[artykris]

Plastic_ - you`re absolutely right. 42mm is too narrow for interiors. And it`s OK to use 18mm sometimes .

But, as you said - when you want to make things bigger than in life, you use those "snappy" and sexy wide angles, and if you want to make sth look more natural, calm or smaller you use the other angles.

One just should be aware, that the choice of a perspective for his picture is an important decision. Too often I see that people frame their images with the camera angle spinner: when sth doesn`t fit in the framewindow, instead of moving the camera away, they increase the angle of view, not caring about the huge changes in the perspective ...

And this article that archprog has posted is indeed a good one:
http://photoinf.com/General/Klaus_Sc...erspective.htm