Camera Labs

I got a Sx 30 IS and went last month to a trip around Europe.
I took all my pictures in wide mode 16:9 since all the screen devices that we use on those day is 16:9 monitors, TV etc. and well my IPAD kinda screw me about this since has an old resolution.

from the thousand picture that i took, i just printed 5%... all the other went to a screen device.

worth take pictures in the regular aspec ratio ?

I'm not sure what other people do but I tend to take 3:2 or 4:3 pictures in the camera and then crop them to 16:9 (or 16:10) in post processing. That's all the camera will be doing anyway as the sensor will probably be 3:2 or 4:3 anyway. In other words there's no penalty for taking 4:3 pictures and then cropping them afterwards whereas there is a penalty for taking 16:9 and cropping to 4:3.

I hope that helps. If I'm talking rubbish please feel free to shoot me down!

I think its only about your preferences...

i personally shoot 3:2, but when i feel a crop might be better, i do it in PC anyways. For me its better to crop something uninteresting later than miss something just because i did not git everything in frame.

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I'm new to DSLR's, so please be patient and take my opinions with reserve. Thank you : ) Yes, i am Canon man.
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I tend to prefer to crop after the fact, but now that I have a camera that has the wide format, maybe I'll give it a shot.

On that note: do any of you know if there is a feature in Photoshop whereby you can crop in a preset format? Something where the crop-box always follows preset dimensions?

Cheers

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Nikon stuff and other stuff, but not nearly as much stuff as I really want!

Which version of Photoshop, LahLahSr?

How about Version 5...is there such a crop feature in that version?

Cheers

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Nikon stuff and other stuff, but not nearly as much stuff as I really want!

There are crop presets in Camera Raw with CS5, as well as in the main program.

In CS5 if you select the crop button on the tools dropdown, you'll have options on the left of the menu bar above the image

Ahhh...I guess I can't see the forest for all the trees, then! I never knew - not that I am at all surprised by that..lol

Thank you dubaiphil - I appreciate the tip!

Cheers

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Nikon stuff and other stuff, but not nearly as much stuff as I really want!

its not all about crop .... de wide pics tend to have more image on the sides and the 4:3 up and down of course ... the result picture is differnt no matter how you crop it.

I think you may have missed the point of what I was saying. Here's the page from the manual for your camera that covers it.



According to that:

-A large image is 4320x3240 pixels
-A widescreen image is 3744xx2140 pixels

Assuming you have enough space on your card and have software to crop the images there is no advantage in shooting a widescreen image. In fact according to that you get more pixels on the width with a normal 4x3 image!

You don't get more space for shooting in widescreen. You are in fact just throwing away pixels from the top and bottom. Useful if you're running low on memory card space but otherwise there's no point.

The last sentence of my first post said it all really.

"There's no penalty for taking 4:3 pictures and then cropping them afterwards whereas there is a penalty for taking 16:9 and cropping to 4:3."

good tip

Gingerpaul - Not all P&S cameras fudge the width when an aspect ratio other than 4:3 is selected.

My Canon SX10 has 4:3 at 3648 x 2736, and 16:9 at 3648 x 2048.

The Fuji HS10 does:

4:3 at 3648 x 2736

3:2 at 3648 x 2432

16:9 at 3648 x 2056

Both cameras are nominal 10Mpix, CCD in the SX10, BSI-CMOS in the HS10.

But even where the camera doesn't reduce the width at other than default ARs - the point you make about "losing area" - is a very valid one.

At times with the HS10 I was trying the 3:2 AR - to get some idea of how the composition will be when I get a DSLR....

What then presented itself was that there of course isn't any "adjustment" of where the camera crops the 4:3 to cut-down to 3:2 - it just chops an equal amount top and bottom - shown clearly in the EVF.

As my 3:2 (or any other!) composition isn't always ideal - that can have unfortunate results.

I've found that if you have 4:3 AR - and the other AR widths don't change if selected in the camera - it's better to use the full 4:3 anyway.

Later, in Photoshop or Gimp, if you've saved as TIFF from RAW, you can AR-crop the (lossless) TIFF as desired.

Take the Selection outline full image width, and both of those apps have a selection indicator to show vertical height selection - for 3:2 use 2432-vertical - you can then arrow-keys the 3:2 selection area up-down - to get what seems to be the best composition.

If you're "learning the 3:2 layout" - that quickly shows you the "eye-layout" comparison 4:3 / 3:2 - so you can use the camera at 4:3 - and "imagine" where the camera would crop top-bottom for 3:2 anyway. And if you're a "bit off" vertically - there's some spare-meat in the 4:3 to adjust later....

Regards, Dave.