When you're planning a capture, it's vital to keep in mind what your final use of the image will be. Setting the correct aspect ratio will help you avoid cropping out essential portions of an image when you and your clients print them out, and changing up your aspect ratio can help challenge you as a photographer to come up with new compositions and keep you on your toes creatively!
Platforms like Instagram have helped change the way we look at and think about the dimensions of images. While the square composition is by no means a new idea, modern cameras are usually set to the 2:3 ratio (resulting, for example, in a 4x6" image). Framing images with a square result in mind (by adjusting your DSLR settings, shifting your camera phone to square mode, or simply planning to crop in post-production) can refresh your eye. For some examples of DSLR 1:1 aspect ratio images, see a few of the images in my
Tanzania gallery. My camera settings stayed in the 2:3 aspect ratio for the trip, but a few scenes just screamed square!
Are you a fan of the square image? How about panoramas? Maybe you stick with the classic 8x10"? Leave a comment with a link to your favorite image that strays from the 2:3 ratio!
The images in this post are from my
Instagram account.
-Friday Ambassador
