Camera Labs

After DAMAGING my 19" Philips Screen a few days ago, i'm in need of a new one.....

My main concern is that nearly all the good ones available (LG/Samsung) are widescreen (my damaged one was 1280x1024 / 4:3) which obviously displays the standard photo's i take perfectly. My photo's never look as good when i view them on this 15.4" laptop of the missus'. I even plugged my PC into my 26" HD TV but again, everything looked too stretched being widescreen.

What screens do you photographers use to view yours, and if widescreen, does the strecthing not bother you?

I just want a standard screen at least 19", preferable more.

I usea Pansonic FZ18 if that helps at all (Photo resolution)

Cheers

Dan.

1280x1024 isn't 4:3, it's almost square at 5:4. As for stretching, that shouldn't be a problem if the display is configured correctly. At worst you'll get some black borders to keep the aspect ratio correct. With LCD computer displays, do make sure you're using them at their native resolution and not any "stretch to fit" option at another resolution.

On widescreen TVs, they usually let you choose the aspect ratio to display at. If you send 4:3 to it, you will need to set a 4:3 mode otherwise you can get stretching to 16:9.

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Canon DSLRs: 7D, 5D2, 1D, 600D, 450D full spectrum, 300D IR mod
Lenses: EF 35/2, 50/1.8, 85/1.8, 135/2+SF, 28-80 V, 70-300L, 100-400L, TS-E 24/3.5L, MP-E 65, EF-S 15-85 IS
3rd party: Zeiss 2/50 makro, Samyang 8mm fisheye, Sigma 150 macro, 120-300 f/2.8 OS, Celestron 1325/13
Tinies: Sony HX9V.

Not sure how your pictures display perfectly. As popo says, it's 5:4 as opposed to the 4:3 of your FZ18.

I use my laptop's 15.4" widescreen (16:10) to edit and view photos as it's the closest to my photos (3:2, 15:10). I also have a secondary monitor which is 1280x1024 like yours and I use this as a second display to display my thumbnail grid in Adobe Lightroom.

Most screens nowadays are 16:10 and 16:9 is quickly becoming a new standard. To display your pictures perfectly, you will need to find a monitor that has the 4:3 ratio. Unfortunately, they are slowly being replaced although you should have no problems finding one. If you like the 5:4 of your old monitor, then you will need to look for another 1280x1024 display as I believe that's the only resolution offered at 5:4. Not sure why they keep it around, it's a very unusual aspect ratio.

A widescreen computer monitor, whether desktop or laptop, will not stretch the photo so it should look the same. The empty space or black borders around the picture will change as well as the size of the image but the actual aspect ratio of the image will not be stretched.

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Graham
Flickr

Thankyou kindly for your replies.

I have just placed an order for a 22" LG Widescreen off Ebuyer

http://www.ebuyer.com/product/143050

It seems a good price?

Things have gone all wrong for me as my PC encountered some hardware problems for which the graphics card had to be removed. I have a LG 19" wide screen LCD with supporting resolution of 1440x900 pixels. On removal of the card the VGA driver that was installed supports only 1280x1024 pixels as a result pictures are getting stretched. What alternatives do I have now! Should I go back to an old CRT monitor?

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epson photo printers

Looks like a nice monitor, I have sent you a PM.

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Jack McIntyre
17, NE England, Student.
Canon EOS 350D + BG-E3 - EF-S 18-55 F/3.5-5.6 - Canon 70-200 F/4L!.
www.imagetwist.co.uk
http://www.flickr.com/photos/jackmcintyre - Wildlife Photostream

Try upgrading your onboard graphics driver.