24mm vs 50mm photos/illustrations
Architectural illustrations are often produced using a focal length of 24-26mm. This is the typical lens on modern phones and drones. The wider field of view allows us to see the whole project in context without resorting to a time consuming, complex, and error prone method of stitching multiple photos together.
It is commonly accepted that the human eye compares closest to a 50mm lens. This is true, IN REAL LIFE. With your right eye on the viewfinder of a full frame camera with 50mm lens and left eye open to the world, both should look the same. This relates to the level of magnification in real life, but becomes IRRELEVANT WHEN VIEWING AN IMAGE ON SCREEN OR PAPER.
24mm is a much wider angle than 50mm, but is more useful for our purposes as it captures enough context to be useful for explaining the impact of a building. Showing a small portion of a building helps no one. Wider lenses make elements smaller relative to the paper/screen they are on, but are consistently scaled relative to other elements in the scene. A tree will block the same amount of building regardless of what lens is used.
Human eyes capture a 120 degree FOV (field of view) while a 24mm lens captures 73.7 degrees and 50mm lens captures 39.6 degrees.
50mm = 1/3 of the Eyes’ FOV.
The 2 images below are the same, shot at 24mm. On the right, the cropping shows what the same vantage point looks like at 50mm.
