Quick Camera Question

[LASTGUY2GETPS2]

Kind of a n00bish question:

I'm traveling this summer and I do plan on printing (Costco!) photos I take. I just bought a new camera (TZ5k) which can shoot in conventional 4:3 and 16:9 (among other formats). Aside from shooting 'wide' instead of 'tall' what other benefits are there? Will I have a problem printing 16:9 photos because of the 'unconventional' ratio or are all photos cropped and rotated when printed?

Thanks!

 

[sswingle]

I don't use wide on mine, because all it does it chop off the top and bottom. I could do that with a crop if I really wanted.

(I have a Canon, not sure how your camera handles this)

 

[Atomic Playboy]

If you're taking the film into Costco to be developed, you'll have no problem printing 16x9. If you bought Photo paper for your printer, then 16x9 could give you some problems, but I imagine the software would know how to deal with that (it's becoming a fairly ubiquitous standard). The only other issue I could see would be frames (I don't know about you, but I don't have a single 16x9 frame in my house) or photo albums (same problem). But I'd probably elect to shoot wide if given the option; panoramic shots always look cooler.

-EDIT- Oh, and what sswingle said; if all it's doing is cropping the picture, then forget it, you can do that with Photoshop if you really want to (and you can add a giraffe while you're at it, cause everyone loves giraffes).

 

[Kirby64]

Originally posted by: LASTGUY2GETPS2
Kind of a n00bish question:

I'm traveling this summer and I do plan on printing (Costco!) photos I take. I just bought a new camera (TZ5k) which can shoot in conventional 4:3 and 16:9 (among other formats). Aside from shooting 'wide' instead of 'tall' what other benefits are there? Will I have a problem printing 16:9 photos because of the 'unconventional' ratio or are all photos cropped and rotated when printed?

Thanks!

Stick with 4:3. Most likely the 16:9 is basically a crop of the 4:3 shots. Also, printing will, most likely, have issues.

 

[E equals MC2]

2:3 ftw!

 

[LASTGUY2GETPS2]

Hmm that doesn't seem to be the case with my camera. It seems to shoot wide natively. As in changing the aspect ratio to wide actually shoots wider ie more panoramic

Here are some samples (camera is at same position)

http://img504.imageshack.us/my...?image=p1010002gi4.jpg
http://img209.imageshack.us/my...?image=p1010004cz7.jpg

EDIT: Wow so many responses so quickly! Thanks.

 

[Alyx]

Yeah, I'm sure its cropping part of your sensor off to get the different ratios. Use the camera default. Another option is to take a picture with each of the settings and see which has the largest number of pixels.

Edit: ohh and what are you going to do with these pictures? cheap 4:3 frames are a little harder to find in all sizes.

 

[randomlinh]

Originally posted by: E equals MC2
2:3 ftw!

blah, 3:2 FTW!

 

[LASTGUY2GETPS2]

Originally posted by: Alyx
Yeah, I'm sure its cropping part of your sensor off to get the different ratios. Use the camera default. Another option is to take a picture with each of the settings and see which has the largest number of pixels.

Edit: ohh and what are you going to do with these pictures? cheap 4:3 frames are a little harder to find in all sizes.

I plan on printing these photos. The camera does have an option of taking all aspect ratios with one shutter click but I would rather save camera space. =)

 

[eelw]

Originally posted by: LASTGUY2GETPS2
I just bought a new camera (TZ5k)

Nice camera. Also thinking about picking it up.

 

[ElFenix]

Originally posted by: Kirby64

Originally posted by: LASTGUY2GETPS2
Kind of a n00bish question:

I'm traveling this summer and I do plan on printing (Costco!) photos I take. I just bought a new camera (TZ5k) which can shoot in conventional 4:3 and 16:9 (among other formats). Aside from shooting 'wide' instead of 'tall' what other benefits are there? Will I have a problem printing 16:9 photos because of the 'unconventional' ratio or are all photos cropped and rotated when printed?

Thanks!

Stick with 4:3. Most likely the 16:9 is basically a crop of the 4:3 shots. Also, printing will, most likely, have issues.

iirc for all the compact cameras that feature a 16:9 mode the 4:3 (usually a 3:2 mode, not sure how many have a 4:3 mode) is actually a crop of 16:9.


i really hate still cameras moving to 16:9. square format is so much better as it uses the maximum amount of image circle and allows the most cropping freedom. should have moved there from 3:2. heck, movie film isn't 16:9 either, it's 3:2 and uses funny lenses ('anamorphic') to cram in more information horizontally than otherwise.

 

[dblevitan]

Originally posted by: ElFenix
iirc for all the compact cameras that feature a 16:9 mode the 4:3 (usually a 3:2 mode, not sure how many have a 4:3 mode) is actually a crop of 16:9.


i really hate still cameras moving to 16:9. square format is so much better as it uses the maximum amount of image circle and allows the most cropping freedom. should have moved there from 3:2. heck, movie film isn't 16:9 either, it's 3:2 and uses funny lenses ('anamorphic') to cram in more information horizontally than otherwise.

P&S cameras are generally 4:3. The easy way to check is to see how many megapixels you get from a 4:3 shot and a 16:9 shot. In the case of the OP (base on the pictures he posted), that's 11.3 MP and 7.75 MP, respectively. Thus the camera natively shoots in 4:3.

SLR cameras are generally 3:2 since that is the same as 35mm film. That's the reason why 4x6 is so popular. Most larger print sizes are based off of medium/large format negative size (4x5 ratio primarily).

 

[LASTGUY2GETPS2]

Hmm...so if I plan on printing 4*6 taking photos in the 3:2 ratio would result in minimum distortion. Thanks. I wonder why then 4:3 is the general standard....

EDIT: Oooooooooooh 4:3, the conventional monitor standard! Duh.

 

[LASTGUY2GETPS2]

Originally posted by: eelw

Originally posted by: LASTGUY2GETPS2
I just bought a new camera (TZ5k)

Nice camera. Also thinking about picking it up.

I'm enjoying it. If you want any picture/video samples let me know. I've had the thing for a day and I'm enjoying it a lot. Let's see how it handles when I travel!

 

[soydios]

4:5 FTW