[Closed] Telephoto pictures, cyclists and the press in the first lockdown (we won)

a claim made by the British Press Photographers' Association, which said it was a “misconception” that telephoto lenses gave a more crowded view of a scene.

Well, strictly speaking, this is true as perspective is governed solely by where you are in relation to the subject.
What a long lens does do is let you isolate a small part of any scene, but this is just me being pedantic....
Who’d have thought - the media using images to further a particular agenda.

IPSO has held in favour of the cyclists in the complaints:

You'll need a microscope, not a long lens, to see any published correction.

Which means the lie always wins, not cyclists.

It has asked mirror.co.uk to add a correction to the online article and also publish a standalone correction in the online corrections and clarifications column.

These rulings will only have any useful impact when we add a requirement that corrections and clarifications must be made at least as prominently as the offending article.

What a long lens does do is let you isolate a small part of any scene,

But it does more than that. The issue is not about cropping out a wider image so you're looking at a handful of cyclists in an otherwise empty park, it's about taking a photo with a substantially different angle of view to the human eye, leading to misinterpretation of the distance of objects based on their relative size.

Wonder how many more rulings like this we'll see in future?
With ofcom looking like it'll be headed up by the daily mail I'd imagine IPSO will be in right wing pockets shortly. Don't think anything will rule the same again if that happens.

Well, strictly speaking, this is true as perspective is governed solely by where you are in relation to the subject.

Yes, but it’s also bollocks, because the whole point of using a long lens for this is to get the effect that’s produced by that change in perspective. They know this perfectly well, of course.