What to Include, What to Cut: A Technical Guide to Shot Scale in Photography and Video

It's quarter past six on a Tuesday morning in October. The air in the English Garden at the Reggia di Caserta has that damp cold that creeps under your leather jacket and settles into your bones before you've even noticed. The gravel path crunches under my boots with every step, whilst the sunlight, still low and slanted, struggles to break through the canopy of centuries-old holm oaks, casting shadows twenty metres long.

Standing in front of me is Berto. For those who don't know him, Berto is the archetypal Campanian entrepreneur who built an empire starting from a metalworking workshop on the outskirts of Marcianise. He's got big hands, marked by decades of proper graft, with that industrial grime that never quite washes out of the pores even after three goes with the hand cleaner. That day we'd arranged a photoshoot for his new corporate identity: a personal branding portrait meant for the cover of his professional profile and the new website.

(Full disclosure, since I mention it often: photographic personal branding is one of the services we offer at the agency. Doesn't change a word of what I'm about to tell you — it's the exact same principle I explain for free to anyone who asks me down the pub.)

I wanted to give him an imposing image. I wanted to bring together the grandeur of the Reggia and the strength of his work. So I made the mistake I still bang on about in my courses to explain what happens when technique gives way to the urge to overdo it.

I had Berto stop halfway down the path, set up the tripod almost thirty metres back, fitted a 24mm to my camera and took a wide shot. The idea, on paper, was perfect: show the monumental architecture in the background with Berto centre frame, like a titan dominating the landscape.

When I looked at the screen on the back of the camera, I knew straight away I'd messed it up.

The result was a tiny, almost laughable man, squashed between the imposing mass of the palace and the towering maritime pines. His hands — the hands that told thirty years of sweat, graft, meticulous precision and entrepreneurial nous — had become an indistinguishable handful of pixels, lost at thirty metres. Berto's face, the laughter lines around his eyes, his wary but proud gaze, vanished into the vastness of the setting. I'd photographed the Reggia di Caserta with a distraction in the middle, not photographed Berto.

That photo wasn't just a technical slip on exposure or focus. It was a proper betrayal of the subject.

That failure in the field gave rise to a reflection that guides every single shot of my professional life: how much should we include in the frame? How much should we cut out? And, above all, why is that choice never, under any circumstances, a neutral decision? Deciding the distance from the subject isn't just about choosing where to stand or which focal length to fit on the camera body. It's about establishing the level of intimacy, respect, drama or distance we want to create between the subject and whoever's looking at the image.

Close shot or wide shot? The first mistake that costs you dear

In photographic and cinematic terminology there's a chronic confusion that trips up beginners and seasoned set veterans alike. The terms "piano" (shot scale tied to the human figure) and "campo" (shot scale tied to the environment) often get used as though they were interchangeable, swapped about depending on the mood of the day. They're not. Understanding the line between these two concepts is the first step towards no longer shooting by accident and starting to photograph with intent.

The fundamental rule is simple, almost anthropocentric: the human figure is the unit of measurement for the entire scale of shots.

We talk about a "Piano" (figure-based shot) when the frame is defined in direct relation to the human body, isolating a part of it or containing it entirely up to the limit of the full figure. In this type of shot, visual and psychological attention is drawn to the person, to their anatomy, their expressions, their gestures or their physical presence. The surrounding context takes a back seat or is eliminated altogether.

We talk about a "Campo" (environment-based shot) when the frame goes beyond the threshold of the full figure and the scale of the surrounding environment becomes prevalent or dominant over the human being. In this type of shot, the person is no longer the sole focus of the image but becomes one of the elements of the landscape or architecture, right up to disappearing altogether.

Careful not to fall into the most common conceptual trap: don't confuse the shot scale with framing proper, or with the idea of the "frame within the frame" — a strategic topic I've covered in the article How to use framing in photography. Whilst framing is about how we arrange and organise geometric elements visually within the frame using natural wings, arches or windows, the shot scale is about the psychological and spatial distance between the lens and what we're telling.

This rigorous codification of shot scale doesn't come from still photography, but from the grammar of cinematic editing in the early twentieth century. Directors and editors like David Wark Griffith and Sergei Eisenstein were among the first to grasp that alternating wide shots with tight cuts on faces wasn't just about showing where the action was taking place, but about manipulating the viewer's emotional state. This language was later absorbed by fine comic strips — the great Italian Bonelli school, from Tex to Dylan Dog, built its narrative effectiveness precisely on the metronomic alternation between wide environmental shots and dramatic close-ups — before becoming the fundamental vocabulary of every contemporary photographer and filmmaker.

When you pick up a camera or hit record on your phone, you're applying a visual grammar with more than a century of history behind it. If you don't know whether you're shooting a mid-shot or a wide shot, you're speaking a language whose grammar you don't understand. And it shows.

The full scale: from the close-up detail to the extreme wide shot

To navigate the shot scale with confidence, you need a clear map of the narrative distances. Below is the technical reference table summarising the entire scale of shots, defining the anatomical cut-off points on the human figure, the equivalent focal lengths in full frame (35mm), the indicative distance from the subject, and the primary use in narrative and visual terms.

Technical notes on the crop factor

The focal length figures in the table above refer to the equivalent in full 35mm frame. In my day-to-day work I often find myself using camera bodies with different sensors: from my Lumix G90 (Micro Four Thirds system with a 2x crop factor) to the Nikon D3200 with an APS-C sensor (1.5x crop factor), which I keep in my bag as an indestructible backup for the riskier jobs.

It's essential to remember that the crop factor alters the apparent focal length and angle of view of your lens:

• Micro Four Thirds (2x Crop): If I want the angle of view and perspective rendering of an ideal 85mm for a Close-Up on Full Frame, on the Lumix G90 I need to fit a 42.5mm lens. A 25mm on Micro Four Thirds corresponds exactly to a 50mm in full frame, ideal for a Medium Shot.
• APS-C (1.5x Crop): On the Nikon D3200 or any APS-C body, to get the equivalent of a classic 50mm for a Medium Close-Up or Medium Shot I need to use a 35mm prime (which equates to an effective 52.5mm). If I want to shoot an Extreme Close-Up with the rendering of a 105mm, I'll need to fit a 70mm or set a zoom around that focal length.

Getting the focal length assessment wrong for your sensor means risking getting physically too close to the subject to fill the frame, introducing horrible perspective distortion that warps the proportions of faces.

Portraiture: where the shot decides the psychology, not just the framing

In portraiture, choosing the shot scale immediately stops being a mere mathematical calculation and becomes a proper psychological operation. Choosing what distance to stand at from the human face means establishing the degree of intimacy or respect towards the person on the other side of the lens.

I've had the chance to test this principle in two environments that are worlds apart in history and urban culture.

In Naples, amongst the narrow alleys of the Quartieri Spagnoli, where washing lines cut the sky into blue strips and the air smells of roasted coffee and fresh paint, I shot a series of personal branding portraits for a leather craftswoman. To tell her dedication, I needed an Extreme Close-Up (ECU) or a Close-Up (CU). When you get within a metre of someone's face with an 85mm set to f/2.8, the depth of field shrinks to a few millimetres. The eyes come into razor-sharp focus, whilst the background of the workshop slips into a soft, emotional blur (bokeh). In that moment you're telling the reader: "Look into her eyes, there's no pretence here."

A few months later I was in Hackney, East London, inside a former industrial building converted into a design studio where Bobby worked. Bobby is Berto's British counterpart: same entrepreneurial spirit, same down-to-earth grit, but raised amongst the red brick soaked by the rain on City Road and pints of ale served in the pubs of Southwark. Bobby didn't want an intimate portrait. He wanted to show his ability to master materials.

For Bobby, the right choice was the American Shot (AS).

The origin of the American Shot and its modern application

The American Shot owes its name to Hollywood Westerns. Directors in the thirties and forties faced a practical problem: the classic medium shot (from the waist up) cut the holsters and pistols strapped to the cowboys' thighs out of the frame. To show both the gunslinger's facial expression during the duel and his hand ready to draw the weapon, they invented an in-between cut that landed exactly at mid-thigh, just above the knee line.

In modern professional portraiture and personal branding, the American Shot is an extraordinary narrative resource. It lets you frame the subject's posture, torso and face whilst keeping their hands and work tools in shot, without scattering attention across the surrounding environment the way a full shot would. When I photographed Bobby in his Hackney studio in an American Shot with a 50mm, I was able to capture his determined gaze, his worn leather apron and the tools of his trade gripped in his right hand, building a dynamic, professional and deeply authentic image.

The master and the mistake: Steve McCurry and the lesson of the Close-Up

When it comes to the Close-Up and Extreme Close-Up, the definitive academic example remains the legendary shot taken by Steve McCurry in 1984 inside the Nasir Bagh refugee camp in Pakistan: Afghan Girl (Sharbat Gula).

McCurry used a Nikon FM2 camera fitted with a Nikkor 105mm f/2.5 lens, loaded with Kodachrome 64 slide film. Choosing a tight Close-Up allowed him to isolate the subject completely from the chaos of the refugee camp. McCurry positioned the lens exactly at the girl's eye level, eliminating every distraction and forcing the viewer to fix on those extraordinary green eyes. Had McCurry shot a medium shot to show the tent and the surrounding context, that image would never have become a global icon of the history of photography. The Close-Up turned an individual condition into a universal symbol.

This shot was created as a tribute to and visual analysis of Steve McCurry's photographic style and technique. In particular, the photograph offers a modern reinterpretation of the shot "Afghan Girl" (1984), and was produced solely for educational and illustrative purposes within this text.

You can view the original shot on Steve McCurry's official website: stevemccurry.com/posters/p/afghan-girl

By contrast, the cautionary counterexample remains my own mistake with Berto at the Reggia di Caserta: trying to tell everything in a single wide shot ended up telling nothing at all. When you're unsure in front of a human subject, always ask yourself: "Do I want to show where they are, or do I want to show who they are?" The answer to that question will point you straight to the right shot.

The right close-up — the one that catches the expression a split second before it changes — isn't caught by having faster reflexes than the subject. You catch it because you'd already read the movement two seconds earlier. It's the same principle as a goalkeeper who doesn't save a penalty because he's quicker than the ball: he saves it because he'd already picked his angle before the boot even touched it.

Landscape: the extreme wide shot lies if you don't know what to cut

There's a widespread misconception amongst those taking their first steps in landscape photography: the belief that photographing nature or vast spaces obliges you to fit the widest angle lens you own and always shoot in Extreme Wide Shot (EWS). The thinking goes that the more elements you can cram into the frame, the more spectacular the image will be.

Nothing could be further from the truth. The Extreme Wide Shot is the hardest choice to handle in the entire visual grammar, because without rigorous compositional discipline it risks turning into a confused mass of meaningless detail.

I once photographed the countryside around Santa Maria Capua Vetere during the first autumn mists. When you're facing a stretch of ploughed fields disappearing towards the horizon, the fundamental principles of visual composition tell you the same thing: if you don't give the reader's eye an anchor point, their gaze will wander lost through the photo and never settle.

To master the Extreme Wide Shot in landscape photography you need to apply a rigorous technique:

• Hyperfocal calculation: To achieve maximum apparent sharpness from the foreground right through to infinity, you must set the aperture to an intermediate optimal value (usually between f/8 and f/11) and avoid the optical diffraction that kicks in at f/16 or f/22. It's the same principle as pasta from Gragnano cooked to the right moment: too little time and it's still raw, too much and it loses its bite. The aperture works exactly the same way — the sweet spot is never at the extremes.
• Rigid support and filters: Using a sturdy tripod is essential, paired with a circular polarising filter to cut parasitic reflections from vegetation and calibrate sky saturation, or an ND (Neutral Density) filter to manage long exposures and smooth out cloud movement.

When the Medium Wide Shot beats the Extreme Wide Shot

In many landscape situations, giving up the Extreme Wide Shot in favour of a Medium Wide Shot (MWS) or a Wide Shot (WS) is the winning decision for adding three-dimensionality to the scene.

A key principle is to include a human figure or a familiar structural element in the frame to use as a scale of proportion. As I explained in depth in the article Landscape composition: Masses and lines, analysing shots taken amongst the Icelandic cliffs, a human figure placed in the final third of the frame doesn't destroy the sanctity of the landscape: on the contrary, it dramatically amplifies the perception of vastness. Without that human element as a point of comparison, the mountain or cliff loses its grandeur and becomes abstract.

The teaching of Ansel Adams

The undisputed master of the Extreme Wide Shot and landscape photography remains Ansel Adams. Through the use of the large-format optical bench (8×10 inches) and his celebrated Zone System for controlling black-and-white tones, Adams didn't just record the landscape of Yosemite: he built it with millimetre precision.

In his most famous works — think of Clearing Winter Storm or Moonrise, Hernandez — the Extreme Wide Shot is never a lazy choice. Adams waited hours for the sunlight or the moon to cut across the landscape, creating perfect diagonals between the rock masses and the shadows of the valleys. The majesty of his images comes precisely from his ability to eliminate the superfluous, focusing all the compositional strength on nature's essential elements.

This shot was created as a tribute to and visual analysis of Ansel Adams's photographic style and technique. In particular, the photograph offers a modern reinterpretation of the shot "Moonrise Hernandez" (1941), and was produced solely for educational and illustrative purposes within this text.

You can view the original shot on the Ansel Adams Gallery website: anseladams.com/products/aaop-moonrise-hernandez-new-mexico

Wildlife photography: the shot that decides whether you respect the animal or chase it

Wildlife photography is the proving ground where the choice of shot takes on a value that's not just aesthetic, but deeply ethical. In photographic wildlife tracking, the distance between you and the subject defines the fine line between fine art photography and unwelcome intrusion.

I've spent several days waiting inside the Real Bosco di Portici, in the shade of the great holm oak woods surrounding the Bourbon complex, and likewise I've photographed deer roaming free at Richmond Park in south-west London. Two different geographical settings joined by the same operating principle: the animal must never notice your presence, or if it does, it must never feel threatened.

If you want a detail shot of a nuthatch's plumage or an Extreme Close-Up of a deer's gaze without altering its natural behaviour, the solution isn't to sneak up to within three metres of the subject. The solution is technology used with respect.

In plain terms, if you're not into the technical side: the further away the animal is from you, the more you need to "bring it closer" with the lens — not with your legs. Three tools do the job:

• Super-telephoto lenses: Using long focal lengths, from 400mm to 600mm equivalent, with fast apertures (f/4 or f/5.6) to separate the subject from the vegetation background.
• Shutter speed and sensitivity management: Extremely fast shutter speeds — never below 1/1000 second to freeze the animal's micro-movements — balanced against careful ISO control, kept in check to stop digital noise ruining the delicate texture of feathers or fur.
• Camouflage techniques: Fixed hides or camouflage sheeting that eliminate the human silhouette.

The ethics of the tight shot versus the respectful wide shot

The most serious mistake made by amateur wildlife photographers is an obsession with getting the tightest possible shot at all costs. Chasing an animal and frightening it just to fill the frame with its muzzle is an act of violation that almost always produces images with no narrative value: stressed subjects, ears pinned back, terrified expressions.

By contrast, a well-orchestrated Medium Wide Shot (MWS) or Wide Shot (WS) tells a far richer story. Showing the animal within its natural habitat — a deer wrapped in mist amongst the ferns at Richmond Park, or a goshawk perched on the branch of an ancient holm oak at Portici — puts wildlife into context, giving the viewer a genuine sense of discovery.

An extraordinary reference point in this field is the work of wildlife photographer Frans Lanting. In his documentary work for National Geographic, Lanting skilfully alternates between material details of extraordinary beauty — such as the microscopic texture of a penguin's feathers or the pattern of a reptile's skin — and wide shots where the animal becomes an integral part of the ecosystem. Lanting proves that the value of an image doesn't lie in forced physical closeness, but in the ability to choose the shot that best expresses the essence of that creature in that particular moment.

You can explore Frans Lanting's official portfolio at lanting.com

Architecture: from the extreme wide shot that overwhelms to the vertical line nobody controls

When the camera lens turns towards man-made structures, the rules of the game change again. Architecture doesn't move, doesn't change expression and doesn't run off, but it hides a lethal trap that's ruined millions of shots: perspective distortion and poor handling of converging verticals.

I've experienced this myself photographing the Campanian Amphitheatre at Santa Maria Capua Vetere — the second largest Roman amphitheatre in the world after the Colosseum — and comparing that experience with shoots amongst the skyscrapers and industrial geometry of City Road, EC1V, in London, or along the bank by Tate Modern.

In architectural photography, the shot scale moves along two main lines:

• The Extreme Wide Shot (EWS) or Wide Shot (WS): Serves to contextualise the architectural work within the urban fabric or natural landscape. It's the shot that tells how the building converses with the city, with sunlight and with the surrounding space.
• The Medium Shot (MS) or Detail shot: Serves to isolate decorative elements, the texture of materials (the Roman travertine of the Amphitheatre, the glass and steel of London's skyscrapers), structural joints or repeated geometric modules.

The close-up wide-angle mistake and the technical solution

The most common mistake made by anyone photographing a building is standing too close to the façade with an ultra-wide lens (say, a 16mm or an 18mm) and tilting the camera upwards to fit the whole structure into the frame.

The result is a perspective disaster: the vertical lines of the building appear to converge towards the centre, giving the unpleasant sense that the structure is falling backwards. The architecture loses its visual stability and its grandeur.

To master the shot scale in architecture, there are two practical routes:

1. The use of Tilt-Shift lenses: Specialist lenses that allow the elements to shift relative to the sensor plane. This makes it possible to position the camera body perfectly level (parallel to the façade) and eliminate converging verticals at the source, keeping the building strictly perpendicular.
2. Perspective correction in post-production: If you don't have a tilt-shift lens, you should shoot a slightly wider frame than needed, leaving a safety margin around the building, and then correct the vertical and horizontal perspective using the dedicated panels in software such as Adobe Lightroom or Camera Raw.

Nothing complicated, really: it's the same discipline as a bricklayer levelling with a spirit level before putting up a wall. Start crooked, and you'll correct it later with double the effort. Start straight, and the rest takes care of itself.

Julius Shulman's model

To understand how shot scale is handled in modern architecture, it's worth studying the work of American photographer Julius Shulman. His celebrated image Case Study House #22 (shot in Los Angeles in 1960 for architect Pierre Koenig) is a masterclass in composition.

Shulman positioned the camera outside the cantilevered structure on the hillside, shooting a wide-angle wide shot in the twilight hours. The frame doesn't just show the house: it shows the glass structure lit from within, two women in white dresses seated in the living room and, beneath them, the immense sprawl of Los Angeles city lights stretching to the horizon. That wide shot didn't simply document an interior design project: it defined the collective imagination of the mid-twentieth-century Californian dream for good.

This shot was created as a tribute to and visual analysis of Julius Shulman's photographic style and technique. In particular, the photograph offers a modern reinterpretation of the shot "Case Study House #22" (1960), and was produced solely for educational and illustrative purposes within this text.

You can explore Julius Shulman's official archive at the Getty Research Institute: getty.edu/art/collection/person/1050TF

And what about video? The same principle decides whether your content gets watched or scrolled past

If in still photography the choice of shot freezes a single instant in time, in video production the shot scale becomes the backbone of the edit, the heartbeat of the narrative that decides whether a viewer stays glued to the screen or swipes to the next piece of content after three seconds.

I found this out the hard way whilst filming a video testimonial for Berto, inside his workshop in Marcianise. We'd set up a fixed medium shot for the interview, lavalier mic clipped to the collar of his work overalls. Halfway through the take I decided to widen out to an American shot to bring the lathe behind him into view too — stepping back two paces, but forgetting the lavalier was wired, not wireless. The cable pulled taut, the mic produced a metallic rustle that ruined the entire minute of dialogue. I had to redo the whole thing from scratch. Ever since, whenever I plan a shot change on video, the first thing on my mind isn't the camera: it's the audio.

In contemporary video — whether it's a corporate documentary for Berto, a promotional spot for a pub in Southwark or content aimed at social channels — every shot has a very specific dynamic function:

• American Shot and Medium Shot for Social Interviews: This is the ideal cut for talking-head videos. It keeps attention high because it lets the viewer see the interviewee's facial expressions and, at the same time, the hand gestures that are fundamental to Italian communicative culture in conveying energy and authenticity.

• Close-Up and Extreme Close-Up for Emotional Moments: In product videos or reviews, cutting abruptly from a medium shot to a tight close-up on the face just as the interviewee reveals something personal creates an unbeatable spike in visual attention.

• Medium Wide Shot and Wide Shot for Contextual B-Roll: Before showing someone speaking, you need two or three seconds of establishing shot to let the viewer know where we are: the workshop shutter going up in Marcianise, the mist rising over the Thames at Southwark, work at the assembly benches.

Equipment and audio management across shot changes

When working with video and changing the shot scale, handling the technical equipment requires different care compared to still photography:

• Stabilisation on moving shots: If you decide to make a shot change on the move (going from a wide shot to a medium shot whilst walking towards the subject), using a three-axis gimbal becomes essential to avoid unsightly micro-jitters. If instead you're filming fixed-shot interviews, the tripod remains the best tool.

• Managing audio as the distance changes: This is the most common mistake in amateur videos — and, as I've just told you, it happens even to people who should know better. To maintain audio continuity between a close-up and a wide shot, you must always use a wireless lavalier mic clipped to the subject's collar, or a directional mic mounted on a boom pole positioned just outside the frame.

📦 SUMMARY BOX: The quick guide to the shot scale

✅ WORKING CHECKLIST: 3 questions to ask yourself before shooting

Before pressing the shutter button or starting to record video, stop for exactly ten seconds and run through this check in your head:

What do I want to communicate at this precise moment?

If the answer is emotion or mood: tighten the frame, go for a Close-Up or an Extreme Close-Up. If the answer is action or work: choose an American Shot or a Medium Shot. If the answer is the place or the atmosphere: pull back, choose a Medium Wide Shot or a Wide Shot.

How much context is genuinely needed to make the story believable?

Ask yourself whether the background around the subject is adding useful information to the story or just creating visual clutter. Anything that doesn't help the story gets in its way.

What do I need to cut out to avoid diluting the message?

Photography is the art of taking away, not adding. Decide what to eliminate from the edges of the frame before worrying about what to put at the centre.

CONCLUSION: The emotional decision that allows no laziness

After years spent with a camera in hand — amongst the crowded alleys of Spaccanapoli, the misty mornings at the Reggia di Caserta and the pouring rain on the brick of Shoreditch in Hackney — I've arrived at a rock-solid certainty I'll defend anywhere: the shot scale isn't a boring chapter to study in photography manuals just to pass an exam. It isn't a rigid rule designed to limit creativity.

The shot scale is a profoundly emotional decision.

Choosing where to set the edge of your frame means deciding how far you're willing to go towards the truth of your subject. It means deciding whether you want to remain a distant observer watching the scene from afar with a wide shot, or whether you want the courage to look someone in the eye from thirty centimetres away with a close-up, accepting even the imperfection, the wrinkles and the vulnerability that cut inevitably brings with it.

Anyone who always picks the same focal length out of habit, anyone who fits a walkabout zoom and shoots every photo of their life at the same middling distance from the subject, is committing the gravest sin a visual storyteller can commit: telling the exact same story, in the exact same flat tone, whatever the subject in front of them. A Roman temple, a craftsman's portrait, a cat on a wall or a skyscraper each deserve a different psychological distance.

To find out more about how the shot scale ties in with the rules of composition and image geometry, I'd also recommend reading the analyses I've dedicated to the Rule of Thirds and the Golden Section and to the Golden Triangle and diagonal lines.

Don't soften your visual choices out of fear of getting it wrong or in a rush to get the shot in the bag. Next time you're faced with a subject that strikes you, don't shoot on impulse. Take a step forward. Then take another. Or take three steps back. Experiment with changing your perspective and ask yourself what shifts inside you when the distance from reality changes. Only then will you understand that photographing doesn't mean recording what's in front of you, but choosing exactly how you want the world to remember it.