Aspect ratios.

I did find when I was shooting 5x4 a lot it, felt quite mature and refined once I adjusted to it. Then going to 35mm 3:2 felt a bit gimmicky, it’s like when wide aspect ratio films came out all films where doing it as a selling point. 

I do find with medium format 6x6 I always almost  crop it to a portrait or landscape. I admire compositions that work in a square but often I feel it’s like a composition to impress other photographers that are in “the know” about the challange.

ive a 5x7 too and your right, its probably the most “right” aspect ration I’ve used, not quite as dramatic as 35mm

I like 4:3 MF aspect used that for past 14yrs, and now shooting FF resize to that still for model/portrait and very occasionally 1:1. It's a different thing with location/street stuff which 3:2 gets the vote or sometimes other differing ratios.

I can contribute two observations, for what they are worth.

I have a 12" x 10" Wratten and Wainwright, and have never quite fallen in love with the format, much as I love the size. It's a little too static and doesn't quite fit anything as I would wish.

Also many years ago my sister gave me a small "panoramic" camera, I don't recall what the ratio was but it must have been 2 or 3 times a standard 35mm frame. I had great fun on a trip to India seeking out subjects to suit, & found it an enjoyable challenge. The image quality wasn't really sufficient though and I never used it again. If I had one capable of fine image rendering I'd plan shots for it.

I used to work with 5x4" and 10x8" large format cameras on a daily basis but never came across a 5x7" camera. I'm intrigued and found that it is not listed as a common film format size, see here http://www.edinphoto.org.uk/1_early/1_early_photography_-_sizes.htm

The nearest I could see was "full plate" which was 6 1/2 x 8 1/2". I would be interested to know which camera and film you used as I never came across it at college nor in my working life.

Ace said

I used to work with 5x4" and 10x8" large format cameras on a daily basis but never came across a 5x7" camera. I'm intrigued and found that it is not listed as a common film format size, see here http://www.edinphoto.org.uk/1_early/1_early_photography_-_sizes.htm

The nearest I could see was "full plate" which was 6 1/2 x 8 1/2". I would be interested to know which camera and film you used as I never came across it at college nor in my working life.

5 x7 is still ( perhaps very much) alive, the UK Intrepid Camera company do them at  £450. The film holders are still made ( though new ones are rather expensive) 'half plate' 6 1/2x 4 3/4 is the nearest to 5 x7 and the film holders are the same dimensions so will fit in the camera.

The camera I had was a 'Nesbitt' made by a really nice bloke who lived in Wales and made them, including the parts himself. Mine was mahogany with African Blackwood focussing and movement knobs.

Linhof did a field 5 x 7 and backs were available for monorails like Sinar.

The film is still available as well.   

Edited by Lightingman

These days I just crop to whatever works for the image, but generally in today's world I'm a 16:9 man; one thing I really can't stand is the way made-for-TV productions now have an even wider ratio meaning you've black bars at the top and bottom of the screen in the way we did when 14:9 was used on analogue during the transition to digital in the 2000's.

Not a lover of 6x7cm MF, didn't regularly shoot genre that I felt suited that aspect. 4:3 or 1:1.

Lightingman said

Ace said

I used to work with 5x4" and 10x8" large format cameras on a daily basis but never came across a 5x7" camera. I'm intrigued and found that it is not listed as a common film format size, see here http://www.edinphoto.org.uk/1_early/1_early_photography_-_sizes.htm

The nearest I could see was "full plate" which was 6 1/2 x 8 1/2". I would be interested to know which camera and film you used as I never came across it at college nor in my working life.

5 x7 is still ( perhaps very much) alive, the UK Intrepid Camera company do them at  £450. The film holders are still made ( though new ones are rather expensive) 'half plate' 6 1/2x 4 3/4 is the nearest to 5 x7 and the film holders are the same dimensions so will fit in the camera.

The camera I had was a 'Nesbitt' made by a really nice bloke who lived in Wales and made them, including the parts himself. Mine was mahogany with African Blackwood focussing and movement knobs.

Linhof did a field 5 x 7 and backs were available for monorails like Sinar.

The film is still available as well.   

 

Thanks for the information, I appreciate it. I probably never came across it because it's not a commercial size. I trained in the early 70s when full and half plate were pretty much dead and replaced in the commercial world by 5x4" and 10x8". I still have several Sinars and maybe a Linhof, all 5x4", pretty much unused since I stopped doing product photography.

To answer your question, I use the aspect ratio which most suits the composition of the photograph. That's not meant to sound glib. I look at the photograph, use something like the "golden section" guide to composition and then choose the crop aspect ratio to suit.

Now I'm not producing photographs for printed adverts, I don't have to follow a designer's rough and place the subject in a particular place in the frame, so that the designer can drop lots of type round it. I now have the freedom to make the aspect crop fit the subject.

My X1D has many crop settings: 645 no crop, 6x6, 6x7, 5x4, 11x8.5, A4, 6x9, 3x2, 16x9, 2x1, 16x12, and X-PAN 65X24 but the full frame remains available in Adobe if you've changed your mind.

I shoot 5x4 - easier for INSTA and PP and works very well when you've misjudge top or bottom in portrait mode and cut something of then you can recover in Adobe by going to full size.

Edited by photofervor

I have always found aspect ratios difficult to understand.

I feel I am being forced to see the world through someone else's eyes.

One of course selects what one wants to see but this changes continually.

There is much I don't understand.

JPea said

I have always found aspect ratios difficult to understand.

I feel I am being forced to see the world through someone else's eyes.

One of course selects what one wants to see but this changes continually.

There is much I don't understand.

I know what you mean about “someone else’s eyes” but there is the challenge of fitting the image to it. One reason that imho the Leica rangefinder cameras where the frame in the viewfinder enables ‘dropping’ the frame over the scene are wonderful image making machines.

One option that would be easy to incorporate in a digital camera would be a circular frame, people have experimented with shooting larger formats using  lenses that don’t cover the full area and the image is the image circle of the lens, is that the “purist” format🤔.

Edited by Lightingman

I don't think I'm ever going to be the sort of person who shoots loose and crops.

My first "serious" photography was a mix of 4:3 digital, 35mm and then quite a lot of 6x6 with a TLR.

6x6 compels me to fill the frame -- I've always composed right into the corners of it. And a waist-level finder teaches you that your job is not to look through the camera to take photos of interesting things; your job is look *at* the focussing screen and arrange the things you see on it into a picture.

Over the years I have done a lot of gig photography in the local music scene, which often involved a very quick turnaround for social media photos, so I ultimately ended up learning to instinctively fill a 3:2 frame and position myself accordingly, because Facebook does well enough with 3:2. 

That rubbed off on all my photography and I now tend towards pretty instinctive frame-filling or frame-balancing with whatever format I use.

Occasionally I will set up frame lines to deliberately evoke one framing in another format. I should do that more often. And in my home studio space I suppose I shoot more with the awareness that I'll crop to 5x7 etc., but this is just as often motivated by the limitations of lighting a vertical frame evenly in a small space.

Edited by Unfocussed Mike

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Aspect ratio is really important (to me). I’ll set it exactly on my 3:2 digi-cam’s (or as close as I can), often choosing 5:4 or 1:1. I also select my film cam’s primarily on the aspect ratio I want to use.

By ‘want’ it’ll usually be consistent for an entire series/project, not just one image or shoot.

I also find a lot of vertical images being left at the common 3:2 ratio really jarring here on PP and many other photography-centric venues. It’s just too narrow for most subjects / compositions, and I often wonder why otherwise largely competent photographers aren’t seeing this with their work. 3:2 can work beautifully in landscape - esp’ for actual landscapes - but is rarely a sound choice with a vertical. 

Stanmore said

3:2 can work beautifully in landscape - esp’ for actual landscapes - but is rarely a sound choice with a vertical. 

Ehh. Except when it's perfectly fine or right for the job. Cartier-Bresson used it pretty effectively, right?

I am not entirely convinced that most criticisms about 3:2 aren't largely based on historical anti-small-format, anti-35mm professional snobbery that has become folklore.

I do think that if one is not pushing the composition to the corners or prefers a centred subject it probably isn't as much fun as square; you definitely have more of a centre to work with between square and, say, 5:7. But I think 3:2 has its merits.

Edited by Unfocussed Mike