Camera Settings for the Impression of size

Ok this is something which seems to have a limited answer when I've been trawling the internet...

What camera settings would produce the best impression that an object is really large.
I'm talking 300m+.

I'm after Fall Back size, lens size and focal lengths, is depth of field useful here all that.

So far my own results seem to make the object look like a dinky toy rather than the large ship it is...

  • spikeyxxx replied

    I think that a lot has to do with the other elements in the scene...

    When talking about a ship, what size are the waves and how deep can you see the ship in the water (if you can see 50 cm deep, then that is 50 cm of the ship, which is more than 300m large...(see also here: https://cgcookie.com/lesson/ocean-lake-demo).

    The Camera Settings are more an artistic decision. (Although DOF might help a bit...)

  • glenng910 replied

    Speaking as a photographer and not a blender expert:

    To give the impression of size requires that you have a common object for comparison.  For example, a bus, a person, a crane.  The lens and lens setting alone will not accomplish this.

    In general, a wide-angle lens ( say 16-24mm or so) will magnify items in the foreground and shrink items in the background.   It will also look distorted.  A 50mm lens will view the scene as your eye does and a long lens (say 100mm +) will compress.  So if you are looking at the ship at a 45 degree angle, the wide-angle will make it appear longer, and the telephoto shorter.  But without a frame of reference, there will be no indication as to how big it really is.

    If you want the entire ship in focus and you are looking down its length, you will need a small aperture ( large f-stop).


  • Simon Stacey(s3nt1n3l) replied

    Thank you for getting back to me.

    Forgive me for not uploading a render, I'm not sure I'm allowed as the object I'm tinkering with isn't mine...I ripped it from Eve (Thorax).
    If its ok to upload a render anyway I will do.

    I'll try playing with the F-Stop and the DOP with a few different lens sizes.

    I can see a lot more experimenting in my future ;)