DISTORTION Done Right!

Distortion. The nightmare that keeps amateur photographers up all night. Sounds ominous, doesn’t it? After all, who would want to click a picture only to realize that it hasn’t perfectly captured the scene you witnessed with your own two eyes – whether it’s crooked lines of the buildings or people looking like they put on weight in the most unsavory places? Distortion has earned a lot of negative clout in the world of photography, and you may argue that it’s rightly so. But… not if it’s done right!

- NITYAPRIYA KALIYATH

What is Distortion?

Distortion is a type of deformation of the image which causes curved lines to appear in the picture where straight lines should be.

Let’s consider an example. Most skyscrapers & buildings have straight edges and structures, right? (The Leaning Tower of Pisa being one of the exceptions.) But if you see pictures of skyscrapers that have been clicked from below, you’ll notice that the edges of these buildings appear curved, giving the illusion that the buildings would topple over anytime soon! This phenomenon – of the straight edges of the skyscrapers appearing curved – is exactly what distortion is!

Why Distortion is Created?

Well, here’s the moment of truth. All lenses, regardless of high-quality and expensive they are, create some amount of distortion. High-end lens will give you less distortion than their cheaper counterparts. The amount of distortion may vary, but it will still be there. Simply put, no one can escape distortion (laughs evilly).

Before we crack distortion, let’s understand the basic science of how lens works. Your camera lens is not just made of one glass lens; it is made of a series of glass lenses inside it with varying degrees of curvature. (You can check this out for yourself if you dare enough to cut your expensive camera lens into half.) These lenses have to be curved because to capture an image, we need to bend light and then and then only it converges and projects an image onto the camera sensor.