On Wed, Jun 27, 2012 at 6:08 PM, Bob W <[email protected]> wrote: >> > Harald Mante, Photo Design. Picture Composition for Black and White >> > Photography, trans. E F Linssen SZS FRES FRPS (New York, Van Nostrand >> > Reinhold Company, 1971), 10 >> >> sounds like an interesting book, but it's a little hard to find (i did >> request >> an interlibrary loan) — but what's his definition of normal viewing >> distance? >> > > he gives a range for normal *reading* distance of 12-16". This is for reading > books. For reading a desktop computer the health & safety, ergonomics people > usually talk about 20", or approximately arms-length - you'd have to look at > their sites to get a better definition, and possibly also a bell curve. > > However, I don't know why you need a bell curve - you just have to look > around you at a large number of people looking at pictures in every day > circumstances - from books, screens, iPads, art galleries, to get an idea, > and your experience of seeing many humans should give you some idea how > limited their physical variability is - most people's arms are the same > length, give or take a few inches; most people stand about the same distance > away from pictures in a gallery and sit about the same distance away from > their computer screen, give or take a few inches. Of course we can all > produce examples of outliers, but they're, er, outliers, so they don't > broadly affect this. > > Mante's claim is that the viewing distance should be twice the diagonal of > the picture, ergo the diagonal should be half the viewing distance. > > Mante studied at the Bauhaus and although he doesn't give specific references > for his claims, he does say that his aim is to extend to photography the > findings published in the Bauhaus books. > > B
This sounds about right, quite honestly, and fits with my own observations, certainly for *reading*. And I think that to avoid tiring the eyes out reading, that 2:1 distance/diagonal viewing angle calc is probably on the money. And yet Mante's claim would seem to not apply to the viewing of images. Else how to explain the enormous number of art and photography books with larger dimensions. I have a whole bunch of photo books in my own small collection that are on the order of 10x13" (16+" diagonal) that contain images near that size. One of my faves, a Lillian Bassman book, features mostly full-bleed and even gutter-straddling images. I don't hold these books 32" away to view them. I read them at arms-length, and I can assure you that I have industry standard arms. I don't think that all these photo/art books are outliers. I contend that folks like larger images. I also don't think that anyone hiring a photographer would be satisfied being handed a portfolio of 4x6" or 5x7" shots. I'm pretty sure they'd expect to see 8x10" or so. I think that, as a sales tool, 4x6" images would be rather lacking. They're fine for holiday snaps though. -- -bmw -- PDML Pentax-Discuss Mail List [email protected] http://pdml.net/mailman/listinfo/pdml_pdml.net to UNSUBSCRIBE from the PDML, please visit the link directly above and follow the directions.
