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IXUS 185 Distorted Image

Carr
Contributor

Hi,


Yesterday I took self portraits of myself with a Cannon ixus 185 point and shoot digital camera on a tripod set to a 10 second timer, I wasn't very far away,but very close either but I ended up with a distorted somewhat fat face and a double chin which I don't have in person,in the mirror or even in inexpensive camera phones even though I have gotten the wide angle lens distortion if the camera was too close to my face but you can't really tell how close it is and sometimes you get lucky and get really good results. Do you have any suggestions on how to avoid this problem?

Thank You

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1 ACCEPTED SOLUTION

Strongly suggest as Trevor (Tronhard) pointed out to dive into the manual and/or basic online photography courses.

For portrait photography tips, two of my favorite photographers are Canon Explorers of Light Lindsay Adler and Peter Hurley.   Do check out Peter's "The Headshot" and Lindsay's "The Photographer's Guide to Posing: Techniques to Flatter Everyone"

In terms of "Digital Lens", I don't see that mentioned on the product page of your new camera.  Instead, it mentions "Digital Zoom" which I personally do not like at all.  It can lead to much lower quality images.  Always better is "Optical Zoom" which is what your original point and shoot had (up to 10 times).

--
Ricky

Camera: EOS 5D IV, EF 50mm f/1.2L, EF 135mm f/2L
Lighting: Profoto Lights & Modifiers

View solution in original post

31 REPLIES 31

In the end if you are happy with your purchase, that is all we can hope for.  I wish you well with your future endeavours.


cheers, TREVOR

"All the variety, all the charm, all the beauty of life is made up of light and shadow", Leo Tolstoy;
"Skill in photography is acquired by practice and not by purchase" Percy W. Harris

But did you see that the description says that it's a digital camera for still pictures too with a 48 MP and 16 Digital zoom which looks like it's even more than Cannon's ixus has.

I did and I'm honestly not impressed.  When one sees a camera claiming a 'digital lens' it rings alarm bells.  Lenses are not digital, they're optical.  The price, for the claims made honestly doesn't make sense.

Honestly, I think your root issue is that you lack the basic knowledge to use the camera you had.  Simply buying another camera will not resolve that.  However, you have made your decision and you are going to run with it.  I offered you a link to gain some knowledge about photography and you have chosen to buy another camera.  I can't help you with that.  I hope it works out for you.


cheers, TREVOR

"All the variety, all the charm, all the beauty of life is made up of light and shadow", Leo Tolstoy;
"Skill in photography is acquired by practice and not by purchase" Percy W. Harris

Thank you again,but I don't even see on amazon's description of my new camera having a digital lens.

But what exactly does focal length mean?  What I can't understand though is how and why I got a pretty good ( except for the yellow tint too light over exposed) serious close up headshot of myself with this same camera, it's strangely puzzlingly only when I'm smiling only with this camera that I get a (pronounced) double chin distortion.

Strongly suggest as Trevor (Tronhard) pointed out to dive into the manual and/or basic online photography courses.

For portrait photography tips, two of my favorite photographers are Canon Explorers of Light Lindsay Adler and Peter Hurley.   Do check out Peter's "The Headshot" and Lindsay's "The Photographer's Guide to Posing: Techniques to Flatter Everyone"

In terms of "Digital Lens", I don't see that mentioned on the product page of your new camera.  Instead, it mentions "Digital Zoom" which I personally do not like at all.  It can lead to much lower quality images.  Always better is "Optical Zoom" which is what your original point and shoot had (up to 10 times).

--
Ricky

Camera: EOS 5D IV, EF 50mm f/1.2L, EF 135mm f/2L
Lighting: Profoto Lights & Modifiers

Well then can I take self portraits with the new camera without using the zoom option?

I suggest you wait until the new camera arrives to see how it works.  Since it is not a Canon camera, we cannot provide support for that here.
In the meantime:  again, I am BEGGING you to watch the video I recommended many posts ago.  You need to learn the basic principle and terminology of photography to be able to use a camera, or even read a camera manual.


cheers, TREVOR

"All the variety, all the charm, all the beauty of life is made up of light and shadow", Leo Tolstoy;
"Skill in photography is acquired by practice and not by purchase" Percy W. Harris

My mis-typing.  The use of the term digital zoom means that the lens will not zoom but will simply blow up the pixels to make the image bigger.  That is NOT a good sign.  I suspect the OP has bought a camera using a tiny cell-phone camera that simply blows up the image.  45MP on a small, cheap camera is not likely to end well.

I really tried to reach out the OP to encourage them to become familiar with the basics of photography, but I got ignored.  I'm glad they were prepared to see some value in your post, even if I was encouraging this from the beginning.


cheers, TREVOR

"All the variety, all the charm, all the beauty of life is made up of light and shadow", Leo Tolstoy;
"Skill in photography is acquired by practice and not by purchase" Percy W. Harris

I hate to ask this of any of you, but could you help explain from reading the manual of my ixus Cannon, how I can take a very good self portrait free of the (pronounced) double chin I keep getting as I said only with this camera and only when I'm smiling?

 

https://gdlp01.c-wss.com/gds/2/0300025932/02/ixus185-cu-en2.pdf

To be honest this is extremely difficult to do on this type of interface.  I have already suggested in a previous post how you could avoid double-chin effects.  Double chin is caused when you are looking down and the skin folds into a double-chin. That's biological.  So, to avoid that, you would have the camera up higher then your head and look up to the camera.  This stretches the chin muscles and helps to remove a double-chin.

Do you want to have this self portrait for one specific purpose or to go around taking selfies?  If it is the latter, frankly a cell phone on a selfie stick is going to be the most convenient solution, they are full of software designed to deal with this.


cheers, TREVOR

"All the variety, all the charm, all the beauty of life is made up of light and shadow", Leo Tolstoy;
"Skill in photography is acquired by practice and not by purchase" Percy W. Harris
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