Favorite Skyline Shots

[Plutonic Panda]

I think this effect was explained on another thread somewhere. It has to do with the kind of lens Jim Kyle was talking about. I am no expert in photography so I know nothing of this.

[catch22]

You are correct, downtown does not appear to be that big, because you are further away from it.

When you magnify your vision, distant objects fill the background. In fact, the lens itself is not doing anything unnatural. When you look at distant objects (from the naked eye), there is no distance reference. Without distance reference, objects far away appear to be stacked on or behind each other with little loss in relative size or scale.

For example, the moon is the exact same size on the horizon as it is when it is directly overhead. The moon appears larger because you have a objects to relate to on the ground, when it is overhead you have no comparable objects so it appears smaller. It is an optical illusion that it appears larger, it takes up the same amount of sky on the horizon as it does overhead....

Leading to this....

Go to an empty field with hay bales. Some are close and some are far away. Line yourself up to place a distant haybale right "next" to a considerably closer one. Stand 200 feet away from the closest one. Now imagine you can "zoom" in close up. The distant one will appear to be only feet behind the close one. Yet when viewed perpendicular or diagonally instead of parallel they are actually further apart. When you place distant objects in parallel or close parallel to each other and zoom in, you eliminate or reduce depth perception and objects no matter how far apart can appear to be very close.

The pictures posted are zoomed in to a very small "patch of eyesight". Skyline is the distant haybale, the bridge and vehicles are the closest haybale. They are parallel and zoomed in. Our eyes don't zoom, we have wide angle vision and see a much broader picture. if our eyes were set to 160mm and had that magnification, we'd see everything as in those photos, and would not be able to see anything 300-400 feet in front of us very accurately.

Those are absolutely not photoshopped.

[BB37]

For example, the moon is the exact same size on the horizon as it is when it is directly overhead. The moon appears larger because you have a objects to relate to on the ground, when it is overhead you have no comparable objects so it appears smaller. It is an optical illusion that it appears larger, it takes up the same amount of sky on the horizon as it does overhead....

Those are absolutely not photoshopped.

When at or near the horizions, light from the moon (and sun, for that matter) pass though more of the earth's atmosphere, scattering more of the light and making their disks look bigger than they really are. This phenomenon also causes the rising and setting sun and moon to look more reddish, as the atmosphere scatters more blue light than red. As they rise in the sky, they penetrate less of the atmosphere and less light is scattered. There's your science lesson for today.

[catch22]

When at or near the horizions, light from the moon (and sun, for that matter) pass though more of the earth's atmosphere, scattering more of the light and making their disks look bigger than they really are. This phenomenon also causes the rising and setting sun and moon to look more reddish, as the atmosphere scatters more blue light than red. As they rise in the sky, they penetrate less of the atmosphere and less light is scattered. There's your science lesson for today.

These scientists disagree (and NASA also referenced this article). In fact, they say the opposite of what you do. The moon should appear smaller on the horizon due to atmospheric refraction.

The Moon Illusion

The percentage of sky the moon occupies is virtually the same regardless of it's position in the sky. The moon appears larger near the horizon because we have visual references, and the lack of references when directly overhead makes it appear smaller.

Anyway, careening off-topic.