Distortion / Focal Length Crop vs FF

If you're shooting with a 50mm lens on FF and the same lens on Crop, would the distortion be the same assuming the same distance to the subject? I believe it is, but I see conflicting information on this, because most of the time people compare when the subject is framed the same which means distance to the target is obviously different.

The distortion of the lens remains the same, but since distortion is mostly noticeable at the corners it looks like less distortion on cropped bodies.

Just as in the result image, you will have less distortion when the framing is the same.

Are you referring to actual lens distortion (such as pincushion or barrel distortion) or are you thinking of perspective "distortion"? An example of perspective distortion would be a portrait subject's nose looking larger than normal as compared to the subject's ear.

Perspective in photographic images is affected only by the distances between the camera and various elements of the scene in front of it.

Please read our "sticky" (found in the General Photography Talk forum) tutorial titled Perspective Control in Images - Focal Length or Distance?.

I'm thinking of perspective distortion, exactly thinking of the case of how a subjects face will look when photographed. Thanks for the link to the sticky! Exactly what I had in mind.

Ephur wrote in post #16291362
I'm thinking of perspective distortion, exactly thinking of the case of how a subjects face will look when photographed. Thanks for the link to the sticky! Exactly what I had in mind.

Please let us know if the tutorial answers your questions to your satisfaction.

Thanks.

It answered it very well, post #6 nailed it out the park in terms of wanting to understand exactly what I was missing. The 50mm will produce the same distortion on either the FF/Crop camera if used at the same distance from the subject, the framing will just be drastically altered.

So, on a FF, to get the subject filling more of the frame I'd obviously have to be closer, which would introduce the distortion. It makes perfect sense, I had a decent understanding of compression, and the flattening effect, and how wide angle vs telephoto impacted composition (backgrounds, 'flatness') but was missing the simple, yet key fact, distance makes the distortion not focal length. Thanks again for sending me in the right direction!

I think I read that thread a long time ago, as the pictures all looked familiar, but pretty sure at the time I read it initially I didn't quite grasp it, or wasn't looking as critically at my work as I do now.
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Richard Maynard