The Rise of the Selfie 0.5

Shucks. After spending so much time trying to minimize the inherent distortion created by wide angle lenses, a whole new genre of selfie photography is on the rise. Dubbed the ".5 Selfie", it derives its name from the .5 magnification option available on smart phones. 

Just this morning I read an article* by Kalley Huang, a technology reporting fellow for the New York Times. She writes:

"...Unlike a traditional selfie, which people can endlessly prepare and pose for, the 0.5 selfie — so named because users tap 0.5x on a smartphone camera to toggle to ultra-wide mode — has become popular because it is far from curated. Since the ultra-wide-angle lens is built into the back cameras of phones, people can’t watch themselves take a 0.5 selfie, creating random images that convey the whimsy of distortion.

“You really don’t know how it’s going to turn out, so you just have to trust the process and hope something good comes out of it,” said Callie Booth, 19, from Rustburg, Va., who added that a good 0.5 selfie was the “antithesis” of a good front-facing one.

In their best 0.5 selfies, Ms. Booth said, she and her friends are blurry and straight-faced. “It’s not the traditional perfect picture,” she said. “It makes it funnier to look back on.”

The problem is that taking a 0.5 selfie is hard. Because of the back camera, angling and physical maneuvering are a must. If selfie-takers want to fit everybody into a frame, they have to stretch their arms as far out and up as possible. If they want to maximize how much a face distorts, they have to perch their phone perpendicular to their forehead and right at their hairline.

On top of those acrobatics, because the phone is flipped around, 0.5 selfie aficionados have to press its volume button to snap the picture, taking care not to mistake it for the power button. Sometimes 0.5 selfies with large groups require using a self timer as well. Nothing is visible until the selfie is taken, which is half the fun..."

This seems that making my fisheye selfie, albeit one that minimizes perspective distortion, is the totally hip thing to do, if "hip" is still a thing.

*Huang, K. (2022, June 24). The Rise of the 0.5 Selfie. The New York Times