im not sure i get the joke about this? it is photoshopped isnt it. or something as theres no way the castle is that big and in that perspective, it would be huge close up about 30 floors!
Not photoshopped. Here's a shot at explaining it (ridiculously oversimplified at best, and littered with errors at worst - I'm no pro
). Your eyes see the world at a focal length of about 50mm. Whereas, the focal length range of a typical point & shoot lens (when converted to 35mm equivalent) might be 35mm-200mm or more.
Take three pictures of the same subject (from the same distance and angle). At 50mm things appear more or less how your eyes would see them. Zoom out to 35mm and things appear a little smaller/farther away than how your eyes would see them. Zoom in to 100mm and they appear larger/closer. "Objects in mirror..."
Then if you add "angle" to the mix:
When you go out and buy a digital camera, most point & shoots list the specifications for the focal length in 35mm equivalent. For my camera, the spec for the zoom(wide) is listed as 35mm, and the spec for zoom(tele) as 210mm. When I take a picture and look at the EXIF data though (the picture data) I get an "actual" focal length (rather than the 35mm equivalent). So, that Storm Trooper picture shows up in the shooting data as 25mm --
http://www.flickr.com/photo_exif.gne?id=565726174&context=set-72157600393152364
To convert to 35mm equivalent, I just take a picture at zoom(wide) --zoomed all the way out-- and see what focal length is listed in EXIF (in my case it shows up as 7.4mm). I know from the camera specs that the 35mm equivalent for that focal length --zoom(wide)-- is exactly 35mm. Divide the 35mm equivalent (in this case 35) by the actual (in this case 7.4) = 4.73. Now just multiply whatever EXIF lists as focal length by 4.73 to get any 35mm equivalent. So, 25mm (in the storm trooper pic) times 4.73 = 118mm.
I think there's actually a more exact way to convert it but I hate math, and this seems close enough. Maybe somebody with a little more expertise can explain it better though, and/or correct me if I'm wrong anywhere/everywhere