Original. In particular, straight lines will be curved under distortion.

A common form of photographic distortion is barrel distortion and its counterpart pincushion. Straight lines such as architectural features become curved and this is distracting, not only for viewing buildings, but also in portraiture, where the barrel distortion will easily make you 5 or so kgs overweight. Photographers will compensate for this by using the zoom to reduce the amount of distortion (and this, as it turns out, is true, although not the whole story). Continue reading →