Photography, explained
Front camera vs back camera: why you look different in each
The front camera is a short, wide lens held about forty centimetres from your face; the back camera is a better lens usually used from further away.…
Photography, explained
The front camera is a short, wide lens held about forty centimetres from your face; the back camera is a better lens usually used from further away.…
In short: The front camera is a short, wide lens held about forty centimetres from your face; the back camera is a better lens usually used from further away. That distance difference — not the sensor, not the megapixels — is what enlarges your nose, narrows your ears and makes the front camera version look unlike you.
Perspective distortion depends on how far the lens is from the subject, not on the lens itself. At arm's length your nose is perhaps 15% closer to the camera than your ears, and it photographs correspondingly larger. At two metres that difference falls to a few per cent and your face reads normally.
Most phones show a mirrored live preview, because it feels natural to compose that way, and then save the unmirrored file. You compose one face and receive the other — which is why selfies so often look wrong immediately after being taken. Most phones let you turn the mirroring of saved images on or off in the camera settings; either choice is fine, but knowing which one you are getting removes the surprise.
Prop the phone, use the timer or a watch as a remote, and stand back. Use the 2x or 3x lens rather than the default wide. The result is a portrait rather than a selfie, and for most people the difference is dramatic — it is the same reason a professional portrait looks like you and a selfie does not.
Many phones apply skin smoothing to front-camera images by default. That produces the uncanny effect of a face that looks retouched but also strangely flat. It can usually be turned off, and it is worth doing before deciding anything about how you photograph.
The back camera used from a distance, with the zoom rather than the wide lens. It is the closest a phone gets to how people see you in conversation.
Distance. Someone else photographs you from a metre or two away; a selfie is taken from forty centimetres, which enlarges everything nearest the lens.
Whichever you choose, be consistent. The discomfort comes from the mismatch between the preview and the saved file, not from either orientation in itself.
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