Aspect ratios

[pdk42]

I've recently discovered the 65:24 aspect ratio - a super wide format used by the Hasselblad/Fuji XPAN camera (see https://www.hasselblad.com/about/history/xpan/). My interest was piqued by the Panasonic S5 offering it as crop option. Of course, not every subject suits it, but I think when it works, it works well - esp if viewed on a wide monitor. Here's a few I took on Fri. Some are with the Panasonic S5, but I hope you'll forgive me!

Here's a shot of the façade of Packwood House (near Warwick) in three crops - first the native 4:3, then 3:2, then 65:24:







For this subject, I think the 65:24 format works well. Here's a few others I've cropped this way. What do you think?

[Miketoll]

Certainly given the right subject it works very well. Being more of a long focal length guy who struggles with wide angle composition I would find it very challenging but you have some great shots there.

[blackfox]

Yep works for me , I’ve got a custom one in L/R set to 20x9 seems to work similar

[Steveee]

I really like the wider ratio - certainly works on the ones you’ve selected. I have some pictures of grasses that seemed to call for a wider format, and I cropped to 16:6 which isn’t too different to 65:24. Wonder if it’s some magic/golden rario that I’m not aware of?

[wornish]

It certainly works for certain subjects.

But, given it's possible to crop images to any ratio you want these days why restrict yourself to some specific size?

[pdk42]

Very true - but it's sort of nice to have a number of images conforming to the same aspect ratio - it gives a sort of consistency to them.

[Graham_of_Rainham]

I very much like the really dark wood.

[gazza95]

I'm of a similar view to Wornish, in that the actual numbers associated with an aspect ratio are less important than how you crop.

What is does do however is make brain look for other crops not just portrait/landscape. It's too easy with UWA and phone panoramas it to try and include too much detail and loose the focal point of an image without ending up with the classic foreground object as the focal point.

[MJ224]

Panoramas made up of 2 to 3 photos would do much the same. Though one would risk slightly different exposures. Less consistent perhaps...

[Ross the fiddler]

Ken Duncan loves to do multi-frame panoramas using his Phase One camera (he also uses Panasonic). He likes 'lots' of money for his prints too.

[Millhouse Fella]

Just tried it in LrC and it certainly gives a panoramic look to what is clearly not a panorama image. I entered 65 x 24 in LR but it shows the aspect as 6.5 x 2.4, I presume that is the same thing but that is probably me showing my ignorance.

[Ross the fiddler]

Same thing, same ratio.

[Ian]

I sometimes change the aspect ratio to suite the scene in post processing. This is often to square, sometimes to 3:2 and maybe 16:9, but I've not tried any wider unless it was a stitched pano.

Ian

[Crazy Dave]

In the first two, the grassy foreground takes up to roughly 50% of the image. I prefer the tighter 65:24 ratio.

David

[pdk42]

I really like the wider ratio - certainly works on the ones you’ve selected. I have some pictures of grasses that seemed to call for a wider format, and I cropped to 16:6 which isn’t too different to 65:24. Wonder if it’s some magic/golden rario that I’m not aware of?

I think 65:24 was arrived at since the XPAN cameras used 35mm film with the standard image height of 24mm. They then almost, but not quite, doubled the horizontal from 36mm to 65mm. There’s nothing magical, except for the historical nod to the XPAN cameras. BTW, a really top class sample of the original XPAN will likely cost north of £5k. I saw a mint one on eBay with two lenses at 9k. The lenses are effectively medium format lenses to be able to cover the 65mm frame width.

[Harold Gough]

I have, in storage, a complete X-pan kit. I loved the format and used it for about half my transparencies. It is not just for landscapes, even e.g. detail of traction engines respond well.

Panoramic specialists tend to prefer 3:1.

Harold

[pdk42]

Seems like you’re sitting on some value there Harold. I’m intrigued that you had transparencies from it - was that in the wide format? If so, how the hell did you find a projector to take them?

[rogher]

I crop all my shots to 8:5 because that's the format of my Mac screen.

I think there should be a user option to set guidelines for wherever aspect ratio one wants.

[Bruce Clarke]

Works well with the right subject. When doing quickies on my Huawei P30 and now my Pixel 7 Pro, I sometimes switch to full screen AR, which is wide, but not that wide. Saves having to crop later.