The first time I came across the so-called miniature effect was when watching the Eurovision Song Contest a few years ago. The video trailers shown shortly before each performance often featured shots of public transport in the miniature effect. Today, this technique is still used quite often on TV and on photos.
And this is how the miniature effect works: The desired object is placed in the centre of the picture, the top and bottom parts (i.e. a quarter of the picture) are made slightly fuzzy. This creates an optical illusion as if the sharp objects in the centre were miniature objects. This way, a train track could almost look like a model railway for instance.
The miniature effect has become so hip that it is featured in many cameras already – in the actual photo taking process and/or the photo editing section. But also Adobe Photoshop offers this feature and you can use various settings to perfectly manipulate the picture.
My camera is the Nikon D5100 and it comes with the miniature effect too. Below you’ll see some examples of the miniature effect compared to normal photos when taking shots of the Arocs truck of Mercedes-Benz:
normal
with miniature effect
normal
with miniature effect
normal
with miniature effect
Copyright: Helene Clara Gamper / HCG corporate designs