To increase the focal length of a camera in Blender, you need to access the camera settings in the Properties panel. Increasing the focal length makes the perspective flatter and narrows the field of view, similar to zooming in with a physical camera.
Here's how to do it:
Adjusting Camera Focal Length in Blender
- Select Your Camera: In the 3D Viewport, make sure the camera object you want to adjust is selected. You can click on the camera icon in the viewport or select it from the Outliner.
- Open Camera Properties: With the camera selected, go to the Properties panel, usually located on the right side of the Blender interface. Click on the Object Data Properties tab (the green camera icon).
- Locate "Focal Length": Within the Object Data Properties, find the Lens section. Here, you will see the "Focal Length" setting, typically measured in millimeters (mm).
- Increase the Value: To increase the focal length, simply click on the value box next to "Focal Length" and type in a higher number, or click and drag the value slider to the right.
- Pro Tip: As mentioned in the reference, holding down the Shift key while dragging the focal length value allows for smoother, more precise control, making it easier to fine-tune your composition directly in the viewport.
By increasing this value, you are effectively zooming in, making distant objects appear larger and closer together, and compressing the scene's perspective. You can see the effect of changing the focal length live if you have the camera's view active in one of your 3D Viewport windows (press Numpad 0 to switch to camera view).
Adjusting focal length is a fundamental step in setting up your camera's view and achieving the desired perspective for your renders. Experiment with different values to see how they affect the composition of your scene.
