WHat is your Favorite Aspect Ratio?!

[Brian Mosley]

Hi bashar, the E-P1 certainly does have square format as an option it's labelled 6:6 for some reason.

Cheers

Brian

 

[alessandro]

Hi bashar, the E-P1 certainly does have square format as an option it's labelled 6:6 for some reason.

Wow, missed that...
Some reason is 6cm*6cm, the square format of the 120 roll, as used in rolleiflex and such. It was a standard...

 

[bashar]

Wow! Ok never even realized its there! thank you

 

[ballfresno]

Doesn't the GH1 have a 1:1 mode which actually uses the sensor more effectively than simply cropping the 4:3 down to 1:1?

 

[kai.e.g.]

The GH1's sensor isn't really 4:3 - I'm not sure what aspect ratio it really has. When you shoot 16:9 with it, it's not a crop of the 4:3 space like it is with most other cameras; you actually use parts of the sensor to the left & right which don't get used when shooting 4:3. But when you shoot 4:3, you gain sensor "space" top & bottom. However when you shoot 1:1, you get a square crop of whatever the dimensions of their sensor is.

I'm sure there's a diagram somewhere on the net which makes all of this crystal clear, but the bottom line is that that Panasonic sensor is a different beast (in a good way!), and not what the Olympus product manager would have had in mind when he suggested that "m43rds refers to sensor size and aspect ratio" way back in 2002. If he'd known about what Panasonic had in mind, I doubt he would have gone with that dubious line of thought.

 

[Bill Gordon]

Well I guess I better have my tuppence say......as you can see I am a rather elderly man, used to being a former Rollei and Hassy shooter with film and so as I am square I guess I kinda like the square format....yep, that's the way I shoot.

 

[bashar]

my apologies for my ignorance again! i did not even realize those cameras have square onboard. apology to all the squares on the list.

 

[Bill Gordon]

Hi Basher
Apologies accepted!

 

[DHart]

I almost voted 16/9 because I love that look, or square. I never capture in square, though, as I don't want to be forced to that permanently.

Many images (aside from landscapes/scenics and some architecture) just can't hang in there, compositionally, at 16/9 though. And 4/3 looks so boring to me that I only use it (in post) when I'm forced to for images where it really is the perfect compositional aspect ratio or I MUST conform to a print size of that ratio. But that would be done in post.

I mostly capture at the compromise... 3/2.

 

[vincechu]

3:2 because it just looks right, followed by 16:9 because its very interesting to work with and when used correctly is great for landscapes/city scapes. 4/3 has always looked strange to me...

 

[DHart]

3:2 because it just looks right, followed by 16:9 because its very interesting to work with and when used correctly is great for landscapes/city scapes. 4/3 has always looked strange to me...

I just realized after reading your post that I voted wrong. I meant to vote for 3/2 because I like the longer aspect much more than the squatty looking 4/3. When my clients order 8x10's it makes me twitch! I'd much prefer to make 4x6's or 5x7's or 8x12's for them. Traditional portraiture often lent itself to a 4/3 look, but contemporary portraiture pops much better, generally, when you have the flexibility if 3/2 and sometimes even 16/9. And scenics/landscapes usually are great served up in 16/9.

 

[cosinaphile]

4:3 is actually 3.75:3 if my calculations are correct 22.5: 18


its pretty close to 4:3 for practical purposes

4:3 is also the same as the ratio of the pentax 6 X4.5 large format and its pretty nice imho

 

[DHart]

4:3 is actually 3.75:3 if my calculations are correct 22.5: 18


its pretty close to 4:3 for practical purposes

4:3 is also the same as the ratio of the pentax 6 X4.5 large format and its pretty nice imho

yes, 645 has been a standard film aspect ratio for the professional portrait photographer for decades. I've photographed thousands of high school seniors on 645 format.... it makes a very close transition to the traditional 4x5 pro proofs we used and the many 8x10 prints that were so standard for so long. Now today, its funny to me how I dislike that aspect ratio with contemporary portrait work... I have such a hard time shooting 3/2 aspect and translating them into good 8x10 compositions when clients order that size.

 

[DavidB]

I know my G1's sensor captures 4000x3000 pixels, and even when shooting RAW if you select 3:2 or 16:9 it simply throws those pixels away.
Even looking at the G2/G10 they're the same: the GH1 seems the only one that captures "extra" pixels in the other ratios:
Diagram from (and linked to) DPReview.


I'm interested to hear that the Olympus bodies store the full sensor area in the RAW file and just adjust the crop coordinates. I wish my G1 worked that way!
For Olympus RAW shooters using ACR, have you tried converting your images to DNG and using DNG Recover Edges?


Lately my favourite aspect ratio has been 2:1!

 

[kai.e.g.]

The Olympus bodies do not work like the GH1, either. Unlike the Panasonic, all the aspect ratios are simply crops of same 4:3 data supplied by the sensor. If you open a RAW image using the software supplied by Olympus, you see the entire (4:3) sensor data, with a yellow crop marker indicating the aspect ratio the photograph was shot with; you can override/change this crop any way you please after the fact.

Panasonic have at least one other pocket camera (possibly 2?) with odd-sized sensors in them that supply "extra pixels" in one direction or another according to the currently-selected aspect ratio.

 

[richie15]

I like 16:9 for landscape

 

[Christilou]

I like 1:1 but I'm starting to see uses for 16:9 now. I default to 4:3 mostly if I have nothing particular in mind.

 

[matmcdermott]

Wow, I would have never suspected 4:3 so popular. Mostly because I hate it so much. Neither square enough nor rectangular enough. Too much head room to fill and not enough width.

Which is all to say of the buttons I've got above 3:2 is the far and away favorite. But I do have some days and weeks where 1:1 is the perfect thing.

Of the formats we don't have natively in any digital camera, 6:7 is nice (what 4:3 should be, squarish but with a little extra). Wish instead of 16:9, someone had a native 1:1.85 or something even more widescreen/panoramic.