The Good Stuff.

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11.09.2018

One of the major appealing features for me of mirrorless cameras is the ability to set a 1:1 aspect ratio and see it, without clutter, in the evf.


Many of us spent years operating square aspect ratio, medium format cameras. It's always a delight for me to find that feature in a new camera; the ability to see and take photographs in the square. It's one of the things I didn't like about recent generations of Sony A7 series cameras; the technology was there but the Sony engineers didn't seem to understand that adding the 1:1 aspect ratio was important to many photographers.

How many photographers? Hmmmm. I'm not sure Tony Northrup has done an authoritative study on that parameter yet but I can guarantee that the group who feels very positively about square crops has at least one avid member....

The 26 megapixels of the Fuji sensor adds a bit more information to the square frame. The shot above is from a Panasonic G9. It's a good time to be a square shooter. Or a shooter of squares.

As to the image: Diagonals, depth, color contrast and nice sky; who could ask for more?

(well, it would have been even better with a beautiful model in the closer foreground. Next time).
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8 comments:

  1. AnonymousNovember 9, 2018 at 4:00 PM

    Kirk

    Lovely picture. Was this taken with the 15panasonic or the 12-100 Olympus?

    Jay

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    Replies
    1. Kirk TuckNovember 9, 2018 at 4:02 PM

      Hi Jay, Neither. It was taken with the Sigma 30mm f1.4 contemporary lens. the DC DN. Nice lens. I need to use it more often.

      Delete
    2. AnonymousNovember 9, 2018 at 7:04 PM

      Beutiful images. Very nice. I've got to wonder if the local municipality suggests the building colors to be used.

      I've become pesky about perspective sometimes. I have a shift-adaptor for my u4/3 camera, and stick a wide APSC lens on it, prefering to have archtectural images "corrected" as I shoot live, before post. Now this set-up has become mostly obsolete, as the same can be accomplished in post, or sometimes as in-camera jpegs for semi-casual shooting. For dramatic skyscraper/city images, perspective can be left as is. Though for smaller sructures, images seem to be easier on the eyes when corrected. Lens field curature plays a role here also. Of course this is a generalized observation; it all depends on what the artist intends. My 2c.

      Paul

      Delete
  2. Eric RoseNovember 9, 2018 at 8:54 PM

    I'm very much a "square" dude. I don't know what it is but square images just seem so much tighter compositionally.

    ReplyDelete
  3. LongviewerNovember 10, 2018 at 8:43 AM

    Another reason the K-1 has not stayed out of my next-cam yearnings. Nothing I need but so many things I would truly enjoy! Yes the Lumix GX7.ii does this well, and the K-50 easily crops to 1:1 in camera. Curse you marketers, and Ricoh..and my weakness.

    ReplyDelete
  4. AnonymousNovember 10, 2018 at 8:55 AM

    The Sonys do have a 6x4 grid overlay that you can call up, giving you lines for the central 4x4 grid. You are correct that there is the 'clutter' of two side strips of image to ignore. However, I am very used to 4x5 with cropping overlays on the ground glass in the studio, and 35mm rangefinders with 1:1 magnification and both eyes open, so that the frame floats in a much wider field of view. (Great for sports like soccer.) So I've learned to ignore the side strips and to use them to confirm the best composition. I do appreciate your wish for a true 1:1 frame in the finder, but for me the Sony 6x4 grid works very well, and gives me the ability to shift the crop left and right in post.

    Lee

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  5. John F. OpieNovember 10, 2018 at 10:38 AM

    Hmmm...if someone would just make a square sensor for m4/3 lenses, the world would be perfect. Full utilization of image circle, just like 6x6 of yore...

    Okay, maybe not perfect, but getting there.

    ReplyDelete
  6. Patrick CorriganNovember 10, 2018 at 2:54 PM

    Actually, I'd like to see multiple aspect ratios, including square, 4x5, 5x7, etc. At the very least I'd like to see grid overlays for multiple aspect ratios. None of this would be especially hard to do and should not add to the cost of the camera, other than perhaps a few additional programming hours.

    ReplyDelete

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