Wide-Angle Weirdness

[neuroanatomist]

Yes I get what you mean John, the angle of view from the wide-angle vs the "normal"angle of view from a human being, right?(the 50mm on FF story)

That's my point exactly. But you're right that different elements in the image can either enhance or reduce the effect of perspective distortion. It's a good point - the position and angle of the boat in the original shot give it a lot of visual weight, adding to the distortion.

I'm probably talking about a whole different phenomenon when I mentioned the big moon-thingy so just leave that one

Well, sort of. The 'moon illusion' seems to be a complex and not completely understood phenomenon, but it's based mostly in perception rather than optics. Here's a scientific journal article on the topic, if you want to delve into it... [8-|]