What's up Ya'll? Hope you're having a great day! This week I want to talk about something I have never discussed before. Because I just figured it out! LOL Shooting in different Aspect Ratio's. I have always just shot in what ever default the camera came in and cropped in post to the Aspect Ratio that I wanted. Sometime this works fine but others I end up chopping something off that I didn't want to like the top of someone's head. But if you shot in that Aspect ratio to start with you would not have that problem. Now if your not familiar with Aspect ratio's
lets do a little review.
Aspect ratio in photography is the ratio of an image's width to its height, expressed as two numbers separated by a colon. For example, a 3:2 aspect ratio means the image is three times wider than it is tall. Most common aspect ratio's in still photography are 3:2 , 4:3 , 1:1 and most recently 16:9. To put in more common terms 3:2 equals a 6x4 print you used get with film photography, 4;3 ratio is like the old computer monitors more square,
of course 1:1 is square like old 6X6 film cameras and instagram loves this format. And more recently the 16:9 ratio is modern HD moitor and TV size. The latter is the one that I make all of my Title pages for the blog with the titles on them. They fill up the screen. Now there are other aspect ratios especially in printing. But cameras mostly shoot in these 4. My older camera only has two but my newer one has all 4.
Now that we know what aspect ratios are why would we change them in camera? Well for one reason is if you plan to print in a specific ratio you can make sure that it's framed correctly. When you look at your screen and your electronic view finder it's already cropped to the ratio that you picked. Lets say you picked 16:9 when you look at your camera there is a black bar above and below the photo giving you the aspect ratio of 16:9 when you view back on the screen its the
same. If you don't like it and shot in raw and import to Lightroom you can go to cropping and put in original aspect ration and it becomes 3:2 again showing all of the photo that was in the black bar part of your camera screen. Older film cameras you used to get focusing screens that would show the lines where the different aspect ratio's would be. So back to the question why would I change ratios in camera? To me it puts a restriction on shooting which makes you think. Kind of like using one prime lens for a shoot for a whole day. It makes you look at the world a little different making your creative juices flow again. And that's a good thing. If you're in a rut one way to get out of it is shooting restricted a little. Say shoot 1:1 (square) all day. You will be surprised the shots you will get. And your mind will start seeing that way. It's much like shooting in black and white for a day the same thing happens. For a bonus it's a fun way to get your mojo working again without spending money!
Most camera's will have this feature you just have to look for it . I'm using older cameras and both of mine have it. The older one only has two choices but the newer one has 4 choices. I'm going to start experimenting more shooting like this. So until next week get out and shoot and experiment with Aspect Ratios !
Hey if you want to check out my photography go to my instagram account Max Stansell Photography there are over 2000 post there. Here is the link
Max Stansell Photography Instagram Link