For Best Kilt Pics...

[David Thorpe]

...Leads to big, round bellies, narrow shoulders, tiny heads, and pointy, bent up feet...

Wow! All these years and I didn't know the reason for mine! (bulbous tongue in hollow cheek)

Seriously, I'm glad you brought up the lens length issue. It makes a big difference! Portrait lenses for 35 mm cameras are normally slightly longer than 100 mm. That's twice the length of a "normal" lens (which is a compromise length) and 3 times as long as a moderate wide-angle lens. A longer lens decreases perspective distortion, which is why they are used in portraiture.

[tundramanq]

My biggest challenge is trying to outsmart my smart camera even in manual calibrated to a white card the subtle colors try to hide. Best consistent luck so far is standing between the skylight in front and cool white flourescent light behind in my kitchen - take 5 shots a foot apart and view the results on my big screen. Outdoors in indirect sun works well sometimes but not for all colors.

[guardsman]

Your dead right. my daughter(4 at time) took a photo of me ,by far the best.

[Tobus]

Outside is always better than inside. Natural light is much better than using a flash which casts odd shadows and ruins the colours/contrast. The very best light is outside when it's cloudy, to avoid shadows and colour wash-out.

[gary meakin]

I'm not so sure about this.
I'm 5'9".
My wife is 5'2"
She took this with the camera at eye level.

She took this holding the camera as high as she could 6'5" tops

While there is a little difference,
I don't think it's enough to say one is too short or one is too long.

[tundramanq]

One thing to remember, is stand with the aprons against your knees to minimize the distance for the angle to work with. I know I have some kilts that tend to try to keep the pleats close to the back of my knees as I normally stand and the aprons out. If they ar 6 inches forward of your knees then the apparent hem can move about 4.25 inches from floor to 7 foot camera position. (Sine function of right triangles, 45 degrees => 6" x .707 = 4.25")

[gary meakin]

One thing to remember, is stand with the aprons against your knees to minimize the distance for the angle to work with. I know I have some kilts that tend to try to keep the pleats close to the back of my knees as I normally stand and the aprons out. If they ar 6 inches forward of your knees then the apparent hem can move about 4.25 inches from floor to 7 foot camera position. (Sine function of right triangles, 45 degrees => 6" x .707 = 4.25")

I think that most people when getting their picture taken are just standing the way they stand. I really don't think that much thought is or should be put into it.
When I see someone with their kilt at bottom of the knee level and they say it's the camera angle, I have a tough time believing that the camera being a foot lower would make the kilt appear 3 or 4 inches higher.

[Zardoz]

Well, without doing math I can say that camera height, distance and angle make a difference.

Here's a "professional" photo, too high and close;

Shelley was mad that all of her dress was not in the photo. But looking at it we also thought I looked a little forshortened from the waist down.

Here's a similar photo from the next year; (it's a bad scan, the real ones look better)

We told this photographer to back up and "get our feet"! and to try lowering her camera a foot or so from where she had it (about 5 feet high) to a little above waist level. She agreed that guys in kilts looked better that way, although she admitted I was the first guy in a kilt she'd photographed!

[GG]

Looking at kilt pictures I have also noticed that kilts rather often tend to be too long. Probably they aren’t – most of them are without doubt top of knee or mid knee length. Nevertheless they look like being too long, and very often the wearers are men of some “substance”.

Of course it helps changing camera position from eye level to waist level. Then the bare part of the leg between the kilt and the hose shall be revealed. And if you take the picture from ground level, even a too long kilt might look too short. Increasing the distance from camera to object shall have about the same effect.

However, do we only talk pictures here? Don’t forget that you are normally looked upon from eye level. The human eye therefore shall see mostly the same as your camera (mostly because the focal length of the lens plays a role, too).

But basically, if your kilt looks too long in a picture, it might as well look too long to people just seeing you.

That leads to the question: What is more important, the physical correct length of the kilt (compared to your knees) or a visual correct looking length, meaning that men of substance should perhaps better opt for a tad shorter kilt length than should more slender men?

Just a thought.

[PEEDYC]

I must agree. I have a group photo with me and all the other males at a friends wedding and it looks like my kilt is close to being round my ankles. It looks terrible. For some reason the photographer stood on a chair to take it.