Wide Angle Distortion

I explained last time how focal length changes the perspective of our images. Here are a couple of examples of how a really wide angle lens can expand the scene. Candy Land seems smaller than I remember it from childhood, but it was never this big…

In the second image, notice how much longer the right arm seems compared to the left because of the wide angle stretching effect. If that were a nose, it would look huge. That's why you have to be careful if you ever use wide angle lenses for portraits.