The Aspect Ratio's topics - tribe.net

What is Bokeh?

improvactor — Tue, 03 May 2005 17:14:38 GMT

Bokeh is the blurry section of your photographs. Pictures with one thing in focus and everything else out of focus can be really beautiful and engaging images. But when you have bad bokeh in a photo, the background becomes distracting and takes the viewer's eyes away from your crisp subject and as a result your pictures just don't pop out the way they should.

So how do you get good bokeh in your pictures? It all depends on how the light gets to your film/sensor.

The number and shape of the blades in your lens effect bokeh. If you had 4 blades in you lens to adjust your aperture, a blurry light in the background of a picture you took would look like a square, not a circle. If you have a 8 or so blades in your lens, that little blurry light starts looking like a circle.

The quality of your glass in your lens also effects your bokeh. Bokeh can really take away from your image when a little blurry light in the background of your image is a little donut instead of a dot or a sphere. If you don't put some effort into making the optics of a lens, your lens will most likely end up creating distracting blurry areas due to bad bokeh.

So how do you find a camera or a lens that has good bokeh? Well unfortunately for those of us in the western world, we're more focused on what's in focus rather than what's out of focus. As a result we don't see reviews that talk about the quality of bokeh very often. Fortunately, high end camera guys care about it, so at least there's some push to make lenses that don't suck in this department. I guess my tip would be to look at bokeh when testing cameras/lens out. Does this camera's blurry look like good blurry to you?

I'm sorry I don't have a better suggestion than that. Does anyone know of any good online places where they compare the bokeh of different lenses?

posted in The Aspect Ratio - 14 replies

Digital cameras with other Aspect Ratios

improvactor — Mon, 06 Jun 2005 21:10:54 GMT

The vast majority of digital cameras have 4:3 sensors on them, resulting in 1.33:1 images. However, some cameras have auto cropping features built in allowing you to frame up your shots as if you had a real film camera shaped sensor or a HDTV shaped sensor. Here is a list of some of those cameras...

posted in The Aspect Ratio - 5 replies

Panoramic Aspect Ratios

improvactor — Mon, 02 May 2005 23:34:04 GMT

How wide is Panoramic? The answer is hard to come by. As soon as you start to get wider than 2:1, people start calling it panoramic.

Panavision is 2.35:1
A Hasselblad XPan shoots 2.71:1
And Kodak's APS format makes panoramic images at a full 3:1

Then there are the real panoramic guys who shoot 180 degree pictures, or even 360 degree pictures. You can get 4:1, 5:1, 6:1, etc, but you need to start taking multiple images and pasting them together, rotating the camera as the picture exposes, or use some kind or crazy mirror system to get pictures that wide.

posted in The Aspect Ratio - 3 replies

What is an Aspect Ratio?

improvactor — Tue, 03 May 2005 01:15:08 GMT

An aspect ratio is the ratio between the width and the hight of an image. If you had an image that was a perfect square, it would have an aspect ratio of 1:1. One unit of measurement wide by one unit of measurement tall.

If you have a rectangle that is twice as wide as it is tall, you have an aspect ratio of 2:1. Two units of measurement wide by one unit of measurement tall.

The wider the image, the higher the aspect ratio. For digital cameras there are 3 main aspect ratios you're most likely going to come across.

4x3
The size of TVs and most digital point & shoot cameras
Aspect Ratio: 1.33:1

6x4
The size of 35mm film camera negatives and most Digital SLRs
Aspect Ratio: 1.5:1

16x9
The size of HDTV
Aspect Ratio: 1.78:1

posted in The Aspect Ratio - 1 reply

The Four Thirds Standard

improvactor — Mon, 02 May 2005 22:00:44 GMT

There is a push from a group of camera manufactures to make the sensor size of digital cameras a standard size. I would allow them to make cameras cheaper because there would be only one sensor for all their cameras. And the aspect ratio they've chosen for their standard?

1.33, the shape of a standard TV. The war against 1.5 (the shape of 35mm film) is really heating up.

http://www.four-thirds.org/en/about.html

posted in The Aspect Ratio - 1 reply

Digital SLR vs Digital Point & Shoot

improvactor — Mon, 02 May 2005 21:20:41 GMT

6x4 vs 4x3

There are more choices when buying a digital camera than how many megapixels it has. The shape of the image is also something to consider. Professional digital cameras have an aspect ratio which is the same as 35mm film (6x4), but most digital cameras have an aspect ratio that is the same as your old TV (4x3). You should decide before you buy a camera, what shape of pictures do I want to have? Do I want them to be more square like my TV? Do I want them to be more rectangle like the shape of real film? Once you decide which look you like better you can then chose a camera that creates images in the shape you like.

So what's the aspect ratio of the camera you are thinking about buying? Look at the specs on how big the image sensor is!

Image sensor size is a great way to figure out what quality of camera your getting yourself into. The bigger the sensor the better your images are going to look (usually), and if you take the width and divide it by the hight, you'll get the aspect ratio.

TV = 1.33
35mm film = 1.5
HDTV = 1.78
Panoramic = 2.35

Example:
Nikon D70
Sensor size: 23.7mm by 15.6mm
23.7 / 15.6 = 1.5

Canon PowerShot S500
Sensor size: 7.18mm by 5.32mm
7.18 / 5.32 = 1.33

posted in The Aspect Ratio - 1 reply