Is there a term for this ?

Hello

Took this shot from a camera shop today - the lens was a used Pentax 18-250,




The lens is on full zoom - the ball of the ornament looks slightly unreal - is there a term to describe this ?

thanks !

You mean like that you know the ornament is round but isn't?
That has to do with perspective in this case to my knowledge.
This can be dealt with, with a shift lens.

There is also that the lens cause the distortion, some software can correct that.
The types of distortions are barrel, pincushion and a mix of both is called moustache.

thanks - it looks like its been cut out and stuck on !

Ah okay.
The problem might be that it is very hard to judge the depth of the ornament in the photo.
So your mind is trying to make from a 2D photo a 3D image in your head but isn't capable to do so since it's being fooled.

You can blame the perspective if you want

I think Stephan is right. To me it's because there is nothing behind the object to give it context, even detail in the clouds might have helped.

There is also some colour shift which is emphasising the effect (red fringe on right of ball & green/blue fringe on left) - also evident on the balustrade to the right. It can be a common occurence at telephoto lengths on lower end lenses or those with a great range in focal length.

You will notice the chimmneys are splayed out a little bit as well, This can be corrected in photoshop using the lens correction filter or perspective correction in Free Transform.

If you were at the same level as the ball and took the photo you would not get the perspective change, caused by the lens being on an angle. A lot of building photos have this terrible look. I do a little work for some real estate agents just correcting some of this distortion when they take pictures of multi story buildings.

As mentioned above those shift lenses were used before photoshop. Stange looking things with a bellows with a sort of "S" Bend. but I have seen a Nikon shift lens for Digital, with no bellows but the front and back of the lens dont quite line up.

Justa -- I know what you mean. It looks unreal because it is unreal -- just an image of what really was. It looks cut out and stuck on because that's what lenses and cameras do. They make separate things that our eyes merge together.

This way lies wisdom.

Oops, I am more technical than artistic. Only know lines and shapes. I would like to become more artistic though. Thats why only perspective came to mind looking at the photo.

My Dad was a professional photographer all his life. He was very technically competent as well he was really artistic.

I regret I may have inherited only part of half of his abilities.

I wonder if it is possible to learn to be more artistic, or are you just born with it. i.e. you have it or you dont.

I think that the odd shape that it 'appears' to be in the shot is something like "oblate spheroid." Spherical but not perfectly round in every direction.