How do I show scale in a photo ?

BADGER.BRAD

BADGER.BRAD

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I've taken a few photos lately of streams including waterfalls which are spread over 100 foot or so but when I've return home they look a lot smaller than they are. Is there any techniques that would help me show the scale in a better way ? I've not tried using larger apertures as I'm in the thinking that this would just miss some of the photo.Is it just the small size of screen I'm viewing it on compresssing the images ? Here are a couple about 100 foot long and both with a fair drop in height .


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When you say scale, do you mean depth? If you want to give an impression of scale, include something in the composition as a point of reference for comparison, if that’s possible.

Certainly using a larger F number would give a greater depth of field, but I’m not clear what you mean by missing part of the photo, or looking at it on a smaller screen compressing the images?
 
What focal length are you using? Generally moving in closer with a wide angle lens will give more of an impression of depth than being further away with a longer lens.
Very quick example - one shot with a wide angle, the other with a longer focal length. I’ve tried to keep the bottle the same size in both by changing how far I was from it. Should be able to see that in the shot with the wide angle lens the curtain appears further away from the bottle whereas in reality nothing has changed……..


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The conventional way (which I can understand you might want to avoid) is to include a person.

Although this is always regarded as an infallible way of representing scale, no-one ever seems to take account of very short and very tall people, but that probably is a discussion for another place and time.
 
Possibly too close to the subject? I've got a few from Iceland, holiday snaps mainly ('cos the weather was rubbish), some worked from a perspective perspective, others didn't. This one did, because I was some way away (and the folks that wandered in stage-right gave it a sense of scale)
https://flic.kr/p/298y8bF
View: https://flic.kr/p/298y8bF

This one was a huge drop but you can really only spot the river at the bottom of it if you really look for it (the noise was amazing though)
https://flic.kr/p/LZTCsb
View: https://flic.kr/p/LZTCsb
 
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Contrast. Things in the distance can be shown with a narrower tonal range. Think of a misty landscape.
 
viewfromthenorth said:
Certainly using a larger F number would give a greater depth of field, but I’m not clear what you mean by missing part of the photo, or looking at it on a smaller screen compressing the images?
Click to expand...
Take for example the black and white image, The water fall was about 50 to 60 foot away and the ridge that it is falling from about 40 to 50 foot up from me, the ridge at the top against the sky line is another 50 foot or so above that. The water itself was quite an amount. In the image to my eye anyway none of those measurements look anything like the real thing. In fairness this image was taken with my point and shoot ( on a muddy dog walk) where I had no real control over the settings and it probably was not helping that the photo was taken at an angle looking up in order to get the whole subject in Frame. My comment about looking at it on a small screen as many of us do was aimed at distances being compressed by reducing image size. If for example I blew the image up to life size and placed it on the side of a building the distance between each element in the image may well look in better proportion to real life distances. IE 50 feet between each element now reduce that by a 1000 times and you will not be able to see that there is 50 foot between each element and it will look a lot smaller. A bit like looking at a miniature village from 12 inch's away rather than a real village from 100 yards or so if the model village was very good both could look the same size on a photo and you would struggle to know which was which ( hope that makes sense). We would assume because a house is a certain size that , that is the size rather than the fact the model house is only 12 inches high. But in an unknown image with no scale markers such as a house or person to judge it by how do you get it to show whether it is a big or small item/landscape. Hope that makes sense !

I'm not sure what you mean by missing part of the photo as I never said that.

I will return at some point ( it's on one of my dog walking routes) and try again with a more advanced camera and try a few aperture setting to see if that helps.

Thanks everyone for your input so far.
 
BADGER.BRAD said:
I'm not sure what you mean by missing part of the photo as I never said that.
Click to expand...
Here:
BADGER.BRAD said:
I've taken a few photos lately of streams including waterfalls which are spread over 100 foot or so but when I've return home they look a lot smaller than they are. Is there any techniques that would help me show the scale in a better way ? I've not tried using larger apertures as I'm in the thinking that this would just miss some of the photo.Is it just the small size of screen I'm viewing it on compresssing the images ? Here are a couple about 100 foot long and both with a fair drop in height .
Click to expand...
 
Point taken :confused: What I meant was missing some of the detail, I clearly confused everyone even my self with my original description, sorry !
 
BADGER.BRAD said:
Point taken :confused: What I meant was missing some of the detail, I clearly confused everyone even my self with my original description, sorry !
Click to expand...
I think I know what you’re getting at with the small screen thing now you’ve explained it. You are of course making a two dimensional image of a three dimensional scene so you’re always going to lose something.

Landscape photographers often have something in the immediate foreground of an image - like you’ve done in your second one - and then have elements throughout the composition which gives a kind of depth. I’m not really a landscape photographer in the traditional sense and have never photographed waterfalls so can’t really advise beyond that!
 
I think picture size has a lot to do with it. Any magnificent scene turns into a piddling affair on a print of 6 x 4 but print it 6 foot by 4 foot and it's a different matter. I have an A3+ printer here and the difference between A4 and A3+ is dramatic.
 
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It”s about your brain making things more important to your perception, often appearing larger than they are, but the camera just capturing everything in view.

No idea how to fix it though :D
 
Chris' example in post 3 is my starting point. The closer viewpoint magnifies the foreground, and makes the background items look smaller. The more distant viewpoint shows items in closer to their true scale. I don't know what the scene looks likes on the ground, but I'd try getting further back and using a longer focal length.
 
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