Question About Camera Height For Perfect Centering Of Subject

[Jason Kirsch]

Please be patient as I try to explain my question clearly... This seems like such a simple question but  it's a bit hard to articulate without knowing the right terms and I've never met someone that can answer it with conviction. I also generally do this by "feel" but sometimes I'm a bit off and want to tear my skin off for it.

I'm wondering the technical height to place the camera relative to a subject in order to obtain the most even POV (minimizing any upward/downward angle). For instance, a frame that fills a face, do you place the camera height where the center of the lens is 1/2 down the face (technically), if a perfect center position is what you want to achieve. Or, when capturing a wide of two people seated at a table... if you measure the height of the heads of the subjects (assuming they're the same height), do you put the camera half distance to the ground in order to get a perfect angle (assuming the tilt is balanced)? Is the horizontal image plane the middle of the lens, assuming there's no tilt?

Now I understand that distance to subject is a variable here, but really looking for a time-effective method to prevent any vertical angle off centered in the shot. Thanks in advance!

[David Mullen ASC]

You’d have to have zero tilt on the head and then raise or lower the camera for the amount of headroom you want.

[Robert Hart]

David. What are your thoughts on camera angles and lens focal lengths with respect to psychological influences upon audiences?

[David Mullen ASC]

That's too broad of a question for answering in a single post!

[Johanan Pandone]

On 1/1/2023 at 1:49 AM, Robert Hart said:

David. What are your thoughts on camera angles and lens focal lengths with respect to psychological influences upon audiences?

The most superficial effect that low angles can make the character seem larger/stronger/more dominant and the opposite for higher angles, but higher angles tend to render faces in a more pleasing way. This is a pretty common subject that is the topic of thousands of film theory essays, it shouldn't be hard to find enough reading material to keep you busy for the rest of the evening. The best thing you can do to find your own style is ask two friends to model different facial expressions and body language for you and shoot a bunch of stills from every angle at both ends of a medium zoom lens then study these stills and ask yourself which angles and focal lengths enhanced the emotional language of the models? What effect do these angles have on my own psyche?