Lens Compression
An effect when shooting from far away with a telephoto, where long distances front to back seem to shrink and the background looks pressed right up behind the subject. The cause is not the lens but the camera being far away. When you back far off to frame a person at the same size, the distance to the person and the distance to the background become similar, so the background looks big, close to the person’s size.
How it feels
- Compression
- Crowded
- Claustrophobia
- Sense of crisis
- Layered frame
When to use it
- A crowded city street or a road packed with cars
- Framing a huge mountain or sun behind a person
- Making the far part of hard-to-reach places, like a waterfall, look big
- Making two things that are actually far apart look right next to each other
In the movies
Payback 1999
The fallen man and the red car are quite far apart, yet in a telephoto close-up Mel Gibson’s face looks pressed against the car. Film analysis textbooks give it as an example of telephoto compression.
Not to be confused with
- Telephoto
- Telephoto is the lens; compression is the result that appears when you shoot with it from far away.
- Zoom In/Out
- Zooming in from the same spot only enlarges the image and perspective stays the same. Compression appears only when the camera moves away.
- Dolly Zoom
- A dolly zoom is a camera move that changes distance and focal length together, changing the amount of compression within one shot. The 3D on this page shows that principle slowly.
Prompt
compressed perspective
Shot from far away on a long telephoto lens, compressed perspective: the tall buildings look stacked right behind the subject.
Try these combinations
Telephoto + compression: a runner in the city
Telephoto shot of runner in city, compressed perspective, blurred background
Compression + sunset: a giant sun behind a person
A lone hiker in front of a huge setting sun, shot from far away, telephoto compression