[Yertie]

But some of the image is already cropped out when you take a 1:1 picture. What if you wanted to use a part that is no longer there?

Conite, I believe Yertie is talking about the creative process instead of what creative potentials exist with capturing all the camera can. Ie, the square format let's him see what he is capturing in a different perspective than he otherwise would.

Indeed; my style of photography is to frame the end result when I'm taking the photograph, and the square image gives me a different eye on the scene. Although if you prefer to snap first and then do the creative stuff later in the editing room (like many pro photographers), it's true that those extra pixels are useful.

It's a shame we are losing quality with the camera's internal 1:1 crop though - I might reconsider now.

[85_305]

Here's essentially what happened:

http://i.imgur.com/tDCcXMI.jpg

The whole image is what your camera's sensor was able to see. The square is what the camera cropped the picture to because you had it set to 1:1 ratio. Then, when you had the photos printed, they were cropped again to fit the approx 4:3 paper - that's the rectangle in the middle.

Thank you for that illustration, that definitely helped me understand what is happening. I might actually take some test shots today since the sun and lighting are perfect so far. Thank you very much for your guidance so far.

[jope28]

Indeed; my style of photography is to frame the end result when I'm taking the photograph, and the square image gives me a different eye on the scene. Although if you prefer to snap first and then do the creative stuff later in the editing room (like many pro photographers), it's true that those extra pixels are useful.

It's a shame we are losing quality with the camera's internal 1:1 crop though - I might reconsider now.

You also have the option for the grid-lines to appear on-screen when taking pictures to guide you.

That should help with framing the 4:3 shots and getting an idea of what you'll be working with if you decide to crop the image to 1:1 or 16:9 later on.

 Passport filter-evading the NSA  Make BlackBerry Great Again!

[Troy Tiscareno]

Thank you for that illustration, that definitely helped me understand what is happening. I might actually take some test shots today since the sun and lighting are perfect so far. Thank you very much for your guidance so far.

Glad you found it helpful.

[wingnut666]

I bought camera++ and find it utterly useless. very poor interface.
i've been shooting 1:1 as it looks best on the phone, and on instagram.
i'll give 4:3 a whirl. it does capture a wider field, but looks lousy when reviewing photos...best if you use another device.

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[Troy Tiscareno]

I bought camera++ and find it utterly useless. very poor interface.
i've been shooting 1:1 as it looks best on the phone, and on instagram.
i'll give 4:3 a whirl. it does capture a wider field, but looks lousy when reviewing photos...best if you use another device.

While Instagram no longer requires square pictures, it was still built on square pictures (and is still very much a signature of the service). The point is: when you take a picture, you have to consider what you're going to use that picture FOR. If it's just to post on Instagram, then square is fine. If it's to make prints of, or view on a TV or computer monitor, then it's probably not the best choice, and 4:3 (or 16:9, depending on the native size of your camera's sensor) will make a lot more sense. Know your audience and intended use, and it's much easier to make a good choice.

[85_305]

I've noticed that taking 4:3 pictures instead of 1:1 the pictures look much more clear and the size of the picture is typically significantly larger, meaning to me it's likely capturing more detail via increased megapixel.

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[wingnut666]

if you had read this thread, you'd understand why.
personally I have found 4:3 to be quite annoying...the worst part is this:
I frame my photo, snap the pic and later go to post it to instagram, but oops...it needs to be cropped. I cant do that without losing part of my subject matter so the picture does not turn out the way I want it.

dont tell me instagram can accept non-square photos, thats irrelevant. I dont like the fact that they changed the rules, it messes up my feed.

on another note why will camera++ not snap photos? it just wont do it. I paid for this app, and others were praising it....it doesnt work!



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[85_305]

If you read the the thread, you'd know I'm the original poster.

Reading this thread actually explains to me why every single time I've posted to instagram in the past with 1:1 I'd have to crop the damn thing.

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[conite]

if you had read this thread, you'd understand why.
personally I have found 4:3 to be quite annoying...the worst part is this:
I frame my photo, snap the pic and later go to post it to instagram, but oops...it needs to be cropped. I cant do that without losing part of my subject matter so the picture does not turn out the way I want it.

dont tell me instagram can accept non-square photos, thats irrelevant. I dont like the fact that they changed the rules, it messes up my feed.

on another note why will camera++ not snap photos? it just wont do it. I paid for this app, and others were praising it....it doesnt work!



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Well, crop first, or crop after.

Camera++ works great. I'm not sure what problems you are having with it.

[wingnut666]

if I use 1:1 and frame my shot, I never end up cropping anything, so that's far more efficient for me...this is a passport remember, so it all looks great square.

as for ++, I figured out the issue, but I still don't like it! I was hoping the manual controls would be more intuitive...and accurate.
it also suffers from the same lazy focus and top-of-image smearing issues....that actually seems worse!


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[conite]

if I use 1:1 and frame my shot, I never end up cropping anything, so that's far more efficient for me...this is a passport remember, so it all looks great square.

as for ++, I figured out the issue, but I still don't like it! I was hoping the manual controls would be more intuitive...and accurate.
it also suffers from the same lazy focus and top-of-image smearing issues....that actually seems worse!


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I suppose if Instagram is the target for most of your photos, then pre-cropping with 1:1 is the most suitable.

[wingnut666]

also for viewing them on my phone!

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[85_305]

For viewing on the phone 1:1 is Def better. But as I realized after a recent vacation, 1:1 STINKS when trying to have pictures printed off as they crop the crap out of them and they look horrid.

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[conite]

For viewing on the phone 1:1 is Def better. But as I realized after a recent vacation, 1:1 STINKS when trying to have pictures printed off as they crop the crap out of them and they look horrid.

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Yes, as you would be cropping a cropped image.

[85_305]

Yep exactly right. 4:3 for me from now on.

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[jb325]

Glad someone asked the question because this is good info and I was looking for the same answer. And found it here. Thanks

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[85_305]

The size of the pictures has increased dramatically with 4:3, which tells me that format holds more detail than the 1:1 format.

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[Troy Tiscareno]

The size of the pictures has increased dramatically with 4:3, which tells me that format holds more detail than the 1:1 format.

That's correct. As I illustrated with my picture, the sensor is 4:3, so when you choose 4:3, you're using every pixel the sensor has. When you choose any other ratio, you are just cropping off data from that 4:3 image - even though it happens "automatically" when set to another ratio (1:1, for example).

If you shoot everything in 4:3, you can still frame the picture to be cropped to 1:1 (even if the subject is off-center - no one says you can't crop off one side) for, say, posting to Instagram, but the original is still there and can be printed out in common photo print sizes at full resolution. Yeah, it's a little more work, but the quality is much improved.

[FF22]

That's correct. As I illustrated with my picture, the sensor is 4:3, so when you choose 4:3, you're using every pixel the sensor has. When you choose any other ratio, you are just cropping off data from that 4:3 image - even though it happens "automatically" when set to another ratio (1:1, for example).

If you shoot everything in 4:3, you can still frame the picture to be cropped to 1:1 (even if the subject is off-center - no one says you can't crop off one side) for, say, posting to Instagram, but the original is still there and can be printed out in common photo print sizes at full resolution. Yeah, it's a little more work, but the quality is much improved.

I forgot this is a Passport thread. The "grid line" concept could be improved for composition if it showed a 16:9 grid or box so one could get a good feel for how it would look in the 4:3 image. I shall suggest it to Smcv in the Priv forum.

[Nguyen1]

I like the passport camera. It works just fine, and if used well, can take very good pictures. That said, I wonder if the new Kodak ektra smartphone would be a good upgrade. I hear it has a truly exceptional camera. It's more like a camera with a phone, rather than a phone that takes pics.

Sent from my BlackBerry Passport SE

[Troy Tiscareno]

This might be a better example:



This is a 4:3 image - the same ratio as the camera sensor, and how the image would look with no cropping.

I've used black lines to show what would be cropped away when set to 1:1, and white lines to show what gets cropped away when set to 16:9. In either situation, you're losing a good deal of the image, and if you have need to do more than one thing with that image (post a square photo to Instagram and print out a 3x5 print, for example), you really hurt yourself by having the phone crop the original image - throwing away a lot of those pixels that you'll never have later for other uses.

[Azam Saghir]

Agreed, it's good practice to keep future options more open by framing originally at native resolution as you have more pixels to play with
.
However, my question is about picture quality alone. If say you set the camera aspect ratio to 16:9 and framed your subject exactly as you needed up front and there was no post processing (cropping) involved afterwards.

Would the picture quality be any lesser?

I find cropping in post processing inevitably involves black bars around the image as you have to expand the canvas size in order to retain the original resolution.

[Troy Tiscareno]

Agreed, it's good practice to keep future options more open by framing originally at native resolution as you have more pixels to play with
.
However, my question is about picture quality alone. If say you set the camera aspect ratio to 16:9 and framed your subject exactly as you needed up front and there was no post processing (cropping) involved afterwards.

Would the picture quality be any lesser?

No - there should be no difference, unless your post-processing software is set to, say, increase the compression ratio (thus reducing quality) when you save the pic. I use GIMP for photo editing primarily, and anytime I use a compressed format, I am given a "slider" to adjust the quality of the saved picture, to trade off picture quality for a smaller file size. I can adjust it as I prefer.

I find cropping in post processing inevitably involves black bars around the image as you have to expand the canvas size in order to retain the original resolution.

Cropping ALWAYS reduces the resolution, because you are throwing away pixels from the original image. But that's exactly what your phone (or any camera) does when you set the resolution to something other than its native resolution: it throws away some of the pixels it captures. That's why on the Passport, a 4:3 image is 13 MP while either 1:1 or 16:9 are only 10 MP - either way, about 3 million pixels are cut off the original 4:3 image. It doesn't matter if you have the camera do that or if you do it afterwards in a photo editor - those pixels are going to go away.

The difference is: if you start with a cropped picture - say by setting the phone to capture in 1:1, you've gone from 13MP down to 10MP. If you then want to print that picture on standard photo prints (3x5 or 4x6), you're going to crop AGAIN, and you'll be down to about 6 MP - plus you'll have lost about 50% of the total area. If you look at the pictures I've included earlier in this thread, you'll see how much gets thrown away.

Having said that, the "black bars" will always happen anytime the picture's aspect ratio doesn't match the ratio of the display (or print size) you're using. Thus, going from rectangle to square, or square to rectangle, is going to result in either major cropping or the display being "padded" with black bars to take up the space.

[85_305]

^well said and perfectly illustrated for us. Thank you again.

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