Thread: 4:3 or 16:9?

Hmmm. Since I view most of my photos on my TV, I offen use 16:9. Is this the best option?
In some time I'm going on a 4 week trip to the West Coast of USA and plan to make a video with still photos and movieshots. Is 16:9 still right when I also plan to make a photo book of the trip?

What do you do? And why?

Here's my take on it- I can crop from 3:2 to 16:9 and not lose much except sky. I can crop from 4:3 to 16:9 and not lose much. Trying to crop from 16:9 to either 4:3 or 3:2 I'm going to be throwing away a very large part of the pic.

Have you ever seen a 16:9 ratio book?

I agree with Jim, I always use the native aspect ratio (3:2 for NEX) when taking pictures, and crop later.

Another factor, is whether you're using landscape or portrait orientation. For portrait orientation, it definitively does not make sense to use your TV aspect ratio. 16:9 would be too skinny and tall. In fact, I often crop my portrait orientation pictures from 3:2 to 4:3.

On some Panasonic GH and LX cameras, there's a nice multi-aspect-ratio feature. The sensor is slightly larger, that at picture taking time, you can pick 4:3, 3:2, or 16:9, without loosing anything.

Yep, if you shoot 16:9 JPEG, the camera will crop out pixels because the sensor itself has a 3:2 aspect ratio, so it doesn't really make sense to use 16:9 (except if you shoot RAW+JPEG).

I see your points. Especially about the portrait orientation. I haven't given that any though
Good point about cropping

I think I'll try 3:2 (sorry, I said 4:3) for a while

Thanks guys.

Always best to with the standard and then adjust in software later. The 3:2 always looks fine on my 16:9 computer screen.