For Best Kilt Pics...

**gary meakin** · 5th May 12, 12:20 PM

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** · 5th May 12, 01:06 PM

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** · 5th May 12, 01:44 PM

Originally Posted by 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")

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** · 5th May 12, 07:45 PM

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 · 6th May 12, 04:35 AM

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** · 6th May 12, 04:54 AM

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.

**gary meakin** · 6th May 12, 06:55 AM

So at the correct camera angle these kilts are the right length?

GG · 6th May 12, 08:30 AM

Well, well, sometimes there is no cure. Imagine how it should have looked if taken from ground level!

**English Bloke** · 6th May 12, 10:41 AM

Originally Posted by gpmeakin

So at the correct camera angle these kilts are the right length?

PLEASE! Will people stop posting this picture... It's scaring me!

Edit: Perhaps that should read 'scarring' me...

**NeightRG** · 6th May 12, 01:53 PM

Originally Posted by pugcasso

also taking it from further away (be it a person taking the pic or a camera on a tripod with a timer) helps

This definitely shouldn't be overlooked.

One of the biggest mistakes that people make taking portraits is "zooming out" to fit the whole person in. For a lot of digital cameras, that's about equal to a 20-28mm lens on 35mm film - which is bordering on fisheye. Leads to big, round bellies, narrow shoulders, tiny heads, and pointy, bent up feet.

Your best bet with a point-and-shoot digital camera if you don't have room inside, is to go outside, zoom in as far as you can without going into digital zoom (stop zooming when the lens stops moving) and turn on the flash (odd as it may seem in sunlight)

This will almost entirely eliminate lens distortion, and though the flash on most point-and-shoots won't do much, it will add a little bit of fill light, and bring your subject out of the background a bit.