Thinking about changing Aspect ratio

[Pilotrob56]

Hi everyone, I got back into photography about the middle of last year and since then I have been shooting 4:3 Aspect ratio. When I view my pictures (jpg) , I view them on my 40" 21:9 monitor. There are black bars on both sides of the picture.So today I took a picture, one set at 4:3 and one at 16:9 of the same thing. When I viewed them on my monitor, the 16:9 was wider as I suspected it to be but my question is why not just switch over to 16:9? I like the 16:9 look better, it fills up more of the monitor and I have a much bigger picture. I understand that maybe if I was to shoot tall trees,skyscrapers or someone standing close to you, you switch back to 4:3 on those kind of situations. Just wondering if there is a reason I should not switch over to taking most of my pictures in the 16:9 ratio? Maybe because of printing?

The two pictures below, one is 4:3 and the other 16:9

I do print 5x7 and 8.5x11, maybe going to print bigger in the future. Would that mess up my printing sizes by going 16:9? They look fine now at 4:3. Thanks for any help.

 

[Pilotrob56]

Well heck, now that is confusing. When I posted the pictures here the 4:3 looks bigger than the 16:9. Now I am con fused, When they are on my desktop on my monitor the 16:9 fills up more of the screen. Not sure which one is better?

 

[yardcoyote]

I always shoot at the native aspect ratio of the sensor with any camera. This gathers the maximum amount of data in each shot. Then I crop the image into whatever aspect ratio best supports my ideas about the composition. I might make several different squares out of one 4:3 or 3:2 image, or slice my 16:9 in several different places. Maybe I only keep one "finished" version, or find several of them equally interesting.

(I say always, but I do have a little Fuji X-M1 that I often leave set at 1:1 so I can shoot native squares, just for fun.)

Don't worry about how much of your screen is filled up. Most display software just shows images enlarged to fit the screen unless you tell it otherwise. A 16:9 horizontal matches the shape of most screens pretty closely, so it will look larger. Judge the size of your images by the pixel count in each direction.

--
Instagram: @yardcoyote

 

[FingerPainter]

Well heck, now that is confusing. When I posted the pictures here the 4:3 looks bigger than the 16:9.

Well, off course. They are displayed at the same width, but the 4:3 has more height.

Display them at the same height and the 16:9 will be bigger.

Now I am con fused, When they are on my desktop on my monitor the 16:9 fills up more of the screen. Not sure which one is better?

Aspect ratio is a shape, not a size,. or a relationship between two sizes: Width and Height.

As does yardcoyote, I crop from full sensor to give the aspect ratio I think best suits the subject matter and the display medium. As a result, landscapes are often 16:9, and portraits not infrequently 4:5, but i have done landscapes that are 2.4:1 and 1:1, and other ratios in between.

When sending images of family portraits to the subjects, I'll often send them multiple crops to accommodate standard print sizes: 6x4, 5x7, 8 x 10...

 

[Pilotrob56]

Well heck, now that is confusing. When I posted the pictures here the 4:3 looks bigger than the 16:9.

Well, off course. They are displayed at the same width, but the 4:3 has more height.

Display them at the same height and the 16:9 will be bigger.

Now I am con fused, When they are on my desktop on my monitor the 16:9 fills up more of the screen. Not sure which one is better?

Aspect ratio is a shape, not a size,. or a relationship between two sizes: Width and Height.

As does yardcoyote, I crop from full sensor to give the aspect ratio I think best suits the subject matter and the display medium. As a result, landscapes are often 16:9, and portraits not infrequently 4:5, but i have done landscapes that are 2.4:1 and 1:1, and other ratios in between.

When sending images of family portraits to the subjects, I'll often send them multiple crops to accommodate standard print sizes: 6x4, 5x7, 8 x 10...

So if I were to shoot in 16:9 aspect ratio so I could use up more of the real estate on a wide screen monitor or TV I would be cropping the top and bottom of the sensor? Then that means it would just be magnified to fit the screen right? I just thought that having a 16:9 ration would be better for viewing on a widescreen monitor or TV but not if it will crop off part of the picture. I don`t know if it would be worth it or not.

 

[JustUs7]

Or you could just display at full width and the top and bottom would be cut off.

Consider frame sizes. Your standard 8x10 is a 4x5 aspect ratio. But most sensors are 3x4 or 2x3. Something’s getting cropped.

A 4x6 print is a 2x3 aspect ratio. As is a 12x18.

If you want edge to edge display of your full sensor you have to choose a display method that can encompass that by sharing an aspect ratio.

If you crop at capture your throwing away data and taking away cropping flexibility later.

Edit: BTW - if you’re shooting raw, all the data is captured anyway. So cropping in camera may help with framing but that’s about it.

 

[FrancoD]

Your camera has a 3:2 sensor so you only use the full sensor when you shoot 3:2.

If you crop in camera to any other size, you are losing pixels, this way



the camera always crops to the centre.

 

[FingerPainter]

Well heck, now that is confusing. When I posted the pictures here the 4:3 looks bigger than the 16:9.

Well, off course. They are displayed at the same width, but the 4:3 has more height.

Display them at the same height and the 16:9 will be bigger.

Now I am con fused, When they are on my desktop on my monitor the 16:9 fills up more of the screen. Not sure which one is better?

Aspect ratio is a shape, not a size,. or a relationship between two sizes: Width and Height.

As does yardcoyote, I crop from full sensor to give the aspect ratio I think best suits the subject matter and the display medium. As a result, landscapes are often 16:9, and portraits not infrequently 4:5, but i have done landscapes that are 2.4:1 and 1:1, and other ratios in between.

When sending images of family portraits to the subjects, I'll often send them multiple crops to accommodate standard print sizes: 6x4, 5x7, 8 x 10...

So if I were to shoot in 16:9 aspect ratio so I could use up more of the real estate on a wide screen monitor or TV I would be cropping the top and bottom of the sensor?

Could be top, could be bottom, could be both. You don't have to crop so that you keep the middle. Keep the interesting stuff.

Then that means it would just be magnified to fit the screen right? I just thought that having a 16:9 ration would be better for viewing on a widescreen monitor or TV but not if it will crop off part of the picture.

So it depends whether there is something that matters to the picture in the part you have to crop off to get a 16:9 ratio. Some pictures do not lend themselves to a 16:9 aspect ration because of how the interesting parts of the picture are arranged in the frame.

When taking the photo, think about what sort of aspect ratio would suit the subject matter and frame so that you won't have to crop out interesting parts when you change the aspect ratio.

I don`t know if it would be worth it or not.

Depends on the photo. I have a photo of an iceberg, (more like an ice island) that looks much better at 2:1 because of the lack of interest in the sea and sky. I framed for the desired width when I took the shot, fully intending to crop out top and bottom in development. In general, it is better to frame for the width in a landscape-oriented shot, unless teh best aspect ratio for the scene is less wide than 3:2.

While many landscapes (but certainly not all), especially those with a strong horizon often look better at 16:9 than 3:2, many portraits look better at 3:4 or 4:5 than at 2:3. So cropping to fill the monitor is more successful with some shots than with others.

 

[MarshallG]

Well heck, now that is confusing. When I posted the pictures here the 4:3 looks bigger than the 16:9.

Well, off course. They are displayed at the same width, but the 4:3 has more height.

Display them at the same height and the 16:9 will be bigger.

Now I am con fused, When they are on my desktop on my monitor the 16:9 fills up more of the screen. Not sure which one is better?

Aspect ratio is a shape, not a size,. or a relationship between two sizes: Width and Height.

As does yardcoyote, I crop from full sensor to give the aspect ratio I think best suits the subject matter and the display medium. As a result, landscapes are often 16:9, and portraits not infrequently 4:5, but i have done landscapes that are 2.4:1 and 1:1, and other ratios in between.

When sending images of family portraits to the subjects, I'll often send them multiple crops to accommodate standard print sizes: 6x4, 5x7, 8 x 10...

So if I were to shoot in 16:9 aspect ratio so I could use up more of the real estate on a wide screen monitor or TV I would be cropping the top and bottom of the sensor? Then that means it would just be magnified to fit the screen right? I just thought that having a 16:9 ration would be better for viewing on a widescreen monitor or TV but not if it will crop off part of the picture. I don`t know if it would be worth it or not.

If you shoot 16:9 you will crop part of the sensor, but you will still have far more resolution than your computer monitor.

 

[skyglider]

Hi everyone, I got back into photography about the middle of last year and since then I have been shooting 4:3 Aspect ratio. When I view my pictures (jpg) , I view them on my 40" 21:9 monitor. There are black bars on both sides of the picture.So today I took a picture, one set at 4:3 and one at 16:9 of the same thing. When I viewed them on my monitor, the 16:9 was wider as I suspected it to be but my question is why not just switch over to 16:9? I like the 16:9 look better, it fills up more of the monitor and I have a much bigger picture. I understand that maybe if I was to shoot tall trees,skyscrapers or someone standing close to you, you switch back to 4:3 on those kind of situations. Just wondering if there is a reason I should not switch over to taking most of my pictures in the 16:9 ratio? Maybe because of printing?

Because of printing, I always shoot in the 3:2 aspect. That's because my wife does not use computers and wants all of our keepers printed in the 6x4 inch size (which is 3:2 aspect). Using the aspect that the images will be viewed, allows easier proper framing while shooting for the majority of the images.

 

[Pilotrob56]

Well heck, now that is confusing. When I posted the pictures here the 4:3 looks bigger than the 16:9.

Well, off course. They are displayed at the same width, but the 4:3 has more height.

Display them at the same height and the 16:9 will be bigger.

Now I am con fused, When they are on my desktop on my monitor the 16:9 fills up more of the screen. Not sure which one is better?

Aspect ratio is a shape, not a size,. or a relationship between two sizes: Width and Height.

As does yardcoyote, I crop from full sensor to give the aspect ratio I think best suits the subject matter and the display medium. As a result, landscapes are often 16:9, and portraits not infrequently 4:5, but i have done landscapes that are 2.4:1 and 1:1, and other ratios in between.

When sending images of family portraits to the subjects, I'll often send them multiple crops to accommodate standard print sizes: 6x4, 5x7, 8 x 10...

So if I were to shoot in 16:9 aspect ratio so I could use up more of the real estate on a wide screen monitor or TV I would be cropping the top and bottom of the sensor? Then that means it would just be magnified to fit the screen right? I just thought that having a 16:9 ration would be better for viewing on a widescreen monitor or TV but not if it will crop off part of the picture. I don`t know if it would be worth it or not.

If you shoot 16:9 you will crop part of the sensor, but you will still have far more resolution than your computer monitor.

Well that is good to know. I think my monitor is 3440x1600. Maybe it will not be such a big deal then as far as picture degradation goes. It would be more about the size of aspect ratio that best fits the picture you are wanting to take in that case I guess. Still trying to figure this out.

 

[Pilotrob56]

Your camera has a 3:2 sensor so you only use the full sensor when you shoot 3:2.

If you crop in camera to any other size, you are losing pixels, this way



the camera always crops to the centre.

I guess that is why the picture looks bigger on a monitor because it is not as tall so as to be able to make the picture bigger to fit the size of the monitor screen. This is kinda what I am getting at. If I can frame my pictures with that in mind then it would make my pictures bigger when viewing and use some of the unused area on the monitor or TV. I view my pictures on my monitor more than I print them out. I have my screensaver set to show my pictures so they can be seen in 3 rooms of my house. I think in the old days the TV`s were either 4:3 or 3:2 not sure but they were more square looking instead of the widescreens we have today so why not go with the times. Make them to fit the widescreen sizes now. I can see why people do not want to crop the sensor but if you get more viewing area in the end with 16:9 why not use it?

 

[Pilotrob56]

I always shoot at the native aspect ratio of the sensor with any camera. This gathers the maximum amount of data in each shot. Then I crop the image into whatever aspect ratio best supports my ideas about the composition. I might make several different squares out of one 4:3 or 3:2 image, or slice my 16:9 in several different places. Maybe I only keep one "finished" version, or find several of them equally interesting.

(I say always, but I do have a little Fuji X-M1 that I often leave set at 1:1 so I can shoot native squares, just for fun.)

Don't worry about how much of your screen is filled up. Most display software just shows images enlarged to fit the screen unless you tell it otherwise. A 16:9 horizontal matches the shape of most screens pretty closely, so it will look larger. Judge the size of your images by the pixel count in each direction.

Thanks for the help! I am still deciding whether or not to try when I get ready to take a picture to frame it to 16:9 just so I can look at it as a bigger size on my monitor. That is probably the wrong way to compose a picture though, just for that reason. My pictures look so great when they are that big. I could just look at them all day. It sure beats the heck out of back in the day, about the only way you could view your pictures was to wait till they got back from the drug store just so you could pick all the blurry ones out of your 4x6 pictures you had developed, lol. I finally got a projector so I could see my Kodachrome slides in all their glory, such rich colors, Lord knows I miss my Kodachrome.

 

[jrtrent]

Your camera has a 3:2 sensor so you only use the full sensor when you shoot 3:2.

If you crop in camera to any other size, you are losing pixels, this way



the camera always crops to the centre.

I guess that is why the picture looks bigger on a monitor because it is not as tall so as to be able to make the picture bigger to fit the size of the monitor screen. This is kinda what I am getting at. If I can frame my pictures with that in mind then it would make my pictures bigger when viewing and use some of the unused area on the monitor or TV. I view my pictures on my monitor more than I print them out. I have my screensaver set to show my pictures so they can be seen in 3 rooms of my house. I think in the old days the TV`s were either 4:3 or 3:2 not sure but they were more square looking instead of the widescreens we have today so why not go with the times. Make them to fit the widescreen sizes now. I can see why people do not want to crop the sensor but if you get more viewing area in the end with 16:9 why not use it?

When I started using digital cameras, standard televisions and computer monitors were 4:3, and I was happy to shoot in that aspect ratio. Like you, I wanted to fill the screen, and having previously shot slide film using both 2 1/4 square and the 3:2 ratio of 35mm, 4:3 was easy to get used to for composing images. Perhaps due to decades of simply shooting and projecting slides, my preference is to not press the shutter release until my viewfinder shows me a composition I'm happy with, and I don't want to crop it later.

When 16:9 took over for both monitors and televisions (my two main viewing devices), I tried to adapt to shooting 16:9, but I found it difficult to compose pictures I liked and ended up taking far fewer photos. My best compromise size-wise has been to shoot and view at 3:2, but if you can compose pictures you like at 16:9 (my dad was good at this), then I agree with you--why not use it?

 

[yardcoyote]

Practice helps in this, as it does in everything involved in photography. You can certainly keep a final composition in mind as you shoot. When shooting for eventual 16:9 in the horizontal orientation you would look for a strong horizontal composition and make sure to have interest all the way out to the left and right edges of the frame. The top and bottom edges will be less important, since you know you will be cropping them away.

Remember, though, that your 16:9 image is not "bigger" than your native 4:3 rough before you crop it-- it is smaller since you cropped away some of the data. It doesn't matter when this step is done- if you select 16:9 in camera, you are just getting the camera to do it for you ahead of time.

 

[Pilotrob56]

Your camera has a 3:2 sensor so you only use the full sensor when you shoot 3:2.

If you crop in camera to any other size, you are losing pixels, this way



the camera always crops to the centre.

I guess that is why the picture looks bigger on a monitor because it is not as tall so as to be able to make the picture bigger to fit the size of the monitor screen. This is kinda what I am getting at. If I can frame my pictures with that in mind then it would make my pictures bigger when viewing and use some of the unused area on the monitor or TV. I view my pictures on my monitor more than I print them out. I have my screensaver set to show my pictures so they can be seen in 3 rooms of my house. I think in the old days the TV`s were either 4:3 or 3:2 not sure but they were more square looking instead of the widescreens we have today so why not go with the times. Make them to fit the widescreen sizes now. I can see why people do not want to crop the sensor but if you get more viewing area in the end with 16:9 why not use it?

When I started using digital cameras, standard televisions and computer monitors were 4:3, and I was happy to shoot in that aspect ratio. Like you, I wanted to fill the screen, and having previously shot slide film using both 2 1/4 square and the 3:2 ratio of 35mm, 4:3 was easy to get used to for composing images. Perhaps due to decades of simply shooting and projecting slides, my preference is to not press the shutter release until my viewfinder shows me a composition I'm happy with, and I don't want to crop it later.

When 16:9 took over for both monitors and televisions (my two main viewing devices), I tried to adapt to shooting 16:9, but I found it difficult to compose pictures I liked and ended up taking far fewer photos. My best compromise size-wise has been to shoot and view at 3:2, but if you can compose pictures you like at 16:9 (my dad was good at this), then I agree with you--why not use it?

Thanks for your insight! I just might as well play around trying the 16:9 ratio for a while just to see if I like it better. That is how I view my pictures unless I print them out (I do from time to time). I have my screensaver set to where it will show my pictures and they can be seen from 3 rooms in the house. It is so cool when you can look at a micro shot you took on a big monitor, it kinda reminds me of back the day when I viewed my Kodachrome 64 on a projector. I don`t know why but I would rather view my pictures on a projector, monitor or TV than to look at them printed out. It is nice to have some of your favorite ones printed out hanging around the house though.

 

[MarshallG]

Well heck, now that is confusing. When I posted the pictures here the 4:3 looks bigger than the 16:9.

Well, off course. They are displayed at the same width, but the 4:3 has more height.

Display them at the same height and the 16:9 will be bigger.

Now I am con fused, When they are on my desktop on my monitor the 16:9 fills up more of the screen. Not sure which one is better?

Aspect ratio is a shape, not a size,. or a relationship between two sizes: Width and Height.

As does yardcoyote, I crop from full sensor to give the aspect ratio I think best suits the subject matter and the display medium. As a result, landscapes are often 16:9, and portraits not infrequently 4:5, but i have done landscapes that are 2.4:1 and 1:1, and other ratios in between.

When sending images of family portraits to the subjects, I'll often send them multiple crops to accommodate standard print sizes: 6x4, 5x7, 8 x 10...

So if I were to shoot in 16:9 aspect ratio so I could use up more of the real estate on a wide screen monitor or TV I would be cropping the top and bottom of the sensor? Then that means it would just be magnified to fit the screen right? I just thought that having a 16:9 ration would be better for viewing on a widescreen monitor or TV but not if it will crop off part of the picture. I don`t know if it would be worth it or not.

If you shoot 16:9 you will crop part of the sensor, but you will still have far more resolution than your computer monitor.

Well that is good to know. I think my monitor is 3440x1600. Maybe it will not be such a big deal then as far as picture degradation goes. It would be more about the size of aspect ratio that best fits the picture you are wanting to take in that case I guess. Still trying to figure this out.

It sounds as though you’re very precise in your photography.



In my camera, I can display grid lines in my viewfinder. This is usually for Rule of Thirds composition, but you could use it to guide you in the 16:9 vertical space, so you can compose 16:9 without cropping in-camera.



And all the photo editors I use have cropping tools which can crop to specific ratios, such as 16:9, 1:1, 4:3, 3:4, and so forth.

 

[Heritage Cameras]

I am still deciding whether or not to try when I get ready to take a picture to frame it to 16:9 just so I can look at it as a bigger size on my monitor. That is probably the wrong way to compose a picture though, just for that reason. My pictures look so great when they are that big. I could just look at them all day.

There are a few options you can use to make this easier:

1. If you shoot raw+jpeg, the raw file will always be 4:3 and the jpeg will have whatever aspect ratio you have selected.
2. You can program aspect ratios to a dial, to easily and quickly choose between them.
3. The G100 has a feature called Frame Marker (page 270 in the manual). This shows the aspect ratio selected but still lets you view the area outside the crop with adjustable opacity, so you can see what you're "missing".

 

[Pilotrob56]

Practice helps in this, as it does in everything involved in photography. You can certainly keep a final composition in mind as you shoot. When shooting for eventual 16:9 in the horizontal orientation you would look for a strong horizontal composition and make sure to have interest all the way out to the left and right edges of the frame. The top and bottom edges will be less important, since you know you will be cropping them away.

Remember, though, that your 16:9 image is not "bigger" than your native 4:3 rough before you crop it-- it is smaller since you cropped away some of the data. It doesn't matter when this step is done- if you select 16:9 in camera, you are just getting the camera to do it for you ahead of time.

This is what I am trying to figure out with the new technology in photography and monitors/TVs. The TV and movie companies use this 19:9 format now so why not take advantage of all that wasted space (horizontal). I don`t think my monitor can match the resolution in my camera, its 3440x1440 so maybe cropping the already cropped image will not be too bad at least I hope not. I use a APS-C and MFT cameras so they are already cropped to start with. Maybe the camera companies should start making 16:9 sensors to keep up with the latest popular aspect ratio, lol. That way if you needed to crop you would just have to crop the sides, I don`t know.

There is so much to remember before you push that shutter button, composition, F stop, ISO, shutter speed, white balance and now aspect ratio. It is something I never really thought that much about before.

Here is a picture I took of two red headed woodpeckers the other day. I wish I would have took it at 16:9, I think it would have been better. I guess it is just something else I have to remember to think about and practice on.

 

[Pilotrob56]

I am still deciding whether or not to try when I get ready to take a picture to frame it to 16:9 just so I can look at it as a bigger size on my monitor. That is probably the wrong way to compose a picture though, just for that reason. My pictures look so great when they are that big. I could just look at them all day.

There are a few options you can use to make this easier:

1. If you shoot raw+jpeg, the raw file will always be 4:3 and the jpeg will have whatever aspect ratio you have selected.
2. You can program aspect ratios to a dial, to easily and quickly choose between them.
3. The G100 has a feature called Frame Marker (page 270 in the manual). This shows the aspect ratio selected but still lets you view the area outside the crop with adjustable opacity, so you can see what you're "missing".

Thanks for the tip! I shoot jpeg, never shot raw. These are the first two cameras (Canon t6s and Lumix G100) I have had that has that capability. I am looking forward to learning how to take advantage of it.