Why watches look too big on wrist shots...

[acce1999]

... because a lot of pictures are made using cell phone cameras, that have wide angle lenses, and are positioned too close to the watch/wrist.

I took the two pictures below a couple of years ago, trying to demonstrate the effect:

My wrist, with my Explorer II, with a wide angle lens (24mm equivalent), at a typical cell phone distance (too close):



The watch looks way too big for my wrist, with lugs extending outside the wrist... but below is how the watch looks like when using a normal lens (50 mm equivalent) at some distance (and this is also what I see when I look down at my wrist):



Camera lenses do always distort the proportions/perspective, wide angle lenses tend to "blow up" objects close to the lens, and "reduce" objects far from the lens. A normal lens (50 mm equivalent) offers the best reproduction of what the human eye see.

So, in general, it is not possible to answer the question "is this size good for me" unless the picture is made using a normal lens at a fair distance. It is actually much better to snap a picture of yourself in a mirror - or use self timer function on the camera. Even a cell phone camera picture of a mirror shot is much better to help judging the size.

Here is a mirror shot of my DJ 16200:



And here is a self timer picture of my white Ex II:



I have skinny 6.5 inch wrists, but as should be obvious, the camera, lens and distance have a big impact on appearance, and if I had posted the first picture only with the question: "Is this one too big for my skinny wrist?", a lot of you would probably say yes (or perhaps not even answer my question out of politeness), but If I posted the last picture the reply would perhaps be the same as mine: "It looks fine."

Best,

A