Problems with lens perspective in people shots

I am a very novice photographer. I do need to take a course to try to gey up to speed. In the mean time I have a question I hope someone can help me with. I have a Nikon D90 camera. When I take a picture of someone lets say posing with a golf club I want to get that picture with the person full size. If I zoom in on the subject so I have the whole person it appears that the person is far away? I was taking pictures yesterday at a kids party and it seems that all the kids are far away when they looked really good before I took the picture? Do I need a different lens? I hope someone understands my question and can help. Thanks Mike

Hi Mike,

Welcome, firstly, if you get a chance, please drop by Introduce Yourself & Welcome Other Members (2) thread and leave us a bit of an introduction? - thanks

I think we'll need to know what lens you have fitted, camera to subject distance, etc., before we might advise you.

Or, to save a lot of questions, perhaps if you posted an example picture, we could see the problem.

If you're not sure how to post an image here, please follow this link for a step-by-step; https://www.cambridgeincolour.com/forums/thread1481.htm

The thing with photography is that you will get what you see in the optical viewfinder and should judge things, like are you zoomed in enough, based on that.

Jumping the gun a bit (or a wild guess on my part)
Could a D90 owner help me out please:
I am not familiar with the D90, with Live view, is it possible that a focus aid digital zoom has somehow got left on, and that is resulting in a different view from the final picture?

Regards,

Hi Mikenike,

Please have a look at this link and see if it's maybe the answer you were looking for. Scroll down to about 1/3 down the entire page and check out the photo of the hallway with lights up along the side. Move your mouse over the image and read the text above and it may be what you mean...

We definitely need to know what lens you are using to give you a better answer.
One thing to point out when framing a shot is to truly fill the frame, particularly as the D90 viewfinder only shows 95% of the final shot.

Not saying that this is your problem but new shooters do tend to only see the people in the shot and not fill the frame, common problem.

BTW, you will grow to love the D90 as you become familiar with it, I have.

It is possible that the OP has zoomed in with live view instead of the lens, I use that feature a lot with tripod/manual focusing.