This gets to be real annoying. Why are people so fixated about making their thumbnail renders so fish eyed? They want to show off a face and ruin it with the low FOV setting. I can't tell anything from a fish eye view. Even the large pics in the renderosity store are fish eyed. Is this a matter of people not knowing how to adjust FOV. My personal feeling is the store should require at least one render of a product at 55 or better FOV from from, side and close up.

The simple answer is that Poser, by default, has the Cameras set to 35mm. Some people don't notice it.

jarm is right, I didn't notice it till the other day when someone mentioned it in another thread, and I've been playing about with poser for over 6 months

Attached Link: http://www.photographytips.com/page.cfm/370

Attached Link: http://www.photographytips.com/page.cfm/370 A normal lens typically has an angle of coverage of about 50 to 55 degrees and is roughly comparable to the useful or working angle of coverage of human vision (the peripheral vision areas serving mostly as a motion detection system). ---------------------------------------------------------- Lens choice for portraiture A short telephoto lens captures a subjects' head and shoulders in pleasing, natural-looking proportions. FOCAL LENGTH A lens that is approximately twice the focal length of the cameras normal lens generally provides flattering perspective for portraits. For 35 mm cameras, this is a short telephoto lens with a focal length in the range of 85 mm to 135 mm ---------------------------------------------------

Not all the images in the store are fisheyed. ;) But yes, this is common. I myself didn't know about changing the focal length until I had Poser for a year. I render all my store promos and artwork between 55-90, depending on the subject. I tend to use a lower focal length for full scenes or odd POVs and higher length for head shots.

Interesting.....I can truthfully say I never noticed the perspective distortions before this post. Did a couple of test renders, using 105 and 35mm focal using the face camera. Definitely a noticeable difference. Of course playing around with that I noticed that the higher setting works great with face camera shots, but it would take a lot of manipulation if it's even possible for poser camera shots, so now thanks to Mason and tasmanet I have a better grasp on how to create better face shots without perspective distortions. Now my question would be, what to use when working with poser camera body shots. ANy recommendations there? I generally use around 50mm I think for those as a whole, but Iupped that due to ignorance just to get the view I wanted and not with any photographic knowledge.

I have mine set to load 90mm on the face and 100mm on the main, aux, and posing cameras. The side cameras I rarely use, so I only have them set @ 60mm If you set up your cameras and save preferred state, they will load that way everytime you start Poser. :) ~EA (hate the fish eye)

I just did a quick render with different focal lengths and it is a big difference, the first pic was done with a focal length of 25mm and the second was done with 90mm

For myself, I use 70mm all across the board. I find that if I go with 80 or above, then any background objects I use become distorted, and 60 or below, and you get the fish eye look. Probably not for everyone's taste, but works for me.

My favorite setting are 85mm for the face camera and 55mm for the main camera. I've been a photographer for over 30 years and that has been one of my biggest peeves about Poser since day one. I'm glad someone else mentioned it too.

Attached Link: http://www.buckalew.net/lisa/tutorials/camerafocusing.html

I posted a focus comparison here last week http://www.buckalew.net/lisa/tutorials/camerafocusing.html At the bottom of the page is a link to an animated gif showing all of the images in succession. Lisa

"hat is the big thing about fish-eye renders?" nothing...if you like them then render them...if you don't like them, then don't render them...no big deal...until you make it one...lol

Yes it is a deal. A fish eye render can obscure the look of a model for purchase. The above face shot is a great example. If I go to the store I want to see the pic on the right, not the pic on the left, especially if the product is a particular face arrangement. You wouldn't buy a car looking at it through a weird lens would you? You want to see it flat on and complete, not obscured by a bad camera focus.

This has been a real eye-opener of a thread to a hobbyist/learner like myself. Thanks to you all for raising questions like this(ones the I never woulda known existed), and then explaining them. This is a gtreat example of several heads just adding to the understanding....:) I can't believe the difference in the face renders above... Beav

I didn't find out about the camera lens until relatively recently. I kept wondering why the figures had such weird looking heads. Dork is the worst at 35mm.

if you want to show alot but don't want to take up a lotta room (ie you want to show the whole body of your figure )a fisheye effect works to show the entire pose without rescaling too much. true fisheye effects start at 16mm and work towards 8mm. as was stated above most people don't notice the effect til you get down to about 25mm. a real fisheye lens is 8mm (180 degrees)and would cost at least as much as a copy of lightwave maybe even 3dmax.

I had Poser about a year before I discovered that changing the lens setting could improve the fish-eye look. In fact, until then, I didn't notice anything wrong. So I think a lot of people just don't know that you can chnage the lens and it will improve the image. Mike

Maclean has a good 100mm camera preset in his "Glitterpack" reflection and bumpmap set. Also with some decent light presets included. You might have to hed to the 3DCommune to locate them in freestuff - I don't know if they're still in Rosity freestuff or not. They work pretty good as a fast lens preset changer... I've been using them for six months or so. Once you click the preset, it only takes a moment to go in and individually tweak the focal length on the face and auxilliary cameras.

I use 200 mm for just about everything I do, including my store pics. ;-) Nobody else has ever admitted using one that long, but I think many portrait photographers would like too, only the room isn't big enough for them to get that far away! They get into depth of field problems too, that we don't have to worry about.

i have a 75-135mm lens and almost neve change it unless its to put on or take off a 2x converter. (is it just me or is film/developing getting too expensive these days.) although fisheyes are overused they do have legitimate purposes. the only problem is that those most qualified to use them usually hate them.(i.e. people who notice small changes in perspective.)