Interesting video, taken with a very long focal length lens. The field of view is actually quite small, and the resulting picture appears flat. In fact, the buildings spinning fast in the background are miles away from the subjects in the foreground.
Peyman Milanfar, Google's computational imaging lead, explains the optical flattening in viral Empire State Building protest video
Long focal lengths make distant backgrounds look deceptively close
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2:11 PM · Jul 2, 2026 · 12.3K Views
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Kosta Derpanis (sabbatical in Zurich)@CSProfKGD
@docmilanfar Figures a computational photography person would focus on the lens and background 🤓
Peyman Milanfar@docmilanfar
Interesting video, taken with a very long focal length lens. The field of view is actually quite small, and the resulting picture appears flat. In fact, the buildings spinning fast in the background are miles away from the subjects in the foreground.
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Mazeyar@mazy1998
@docmilanfar
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Richard Manly@RichardPManly
@docmilanfar Them two gunna appear flat too if they fell.
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