Camera Techie advice please, aspect ratio help

alison74

I have a basic understanding of digital cameras and have just tried to google 'aspect ratio' but the stuff that has come up is too technical for me.

What I would like to know, is what setting should my camera be on when I always print out 7 x 5 photos (and sometimes 8 x 6)

Is a setting of 4:3 the right one ? I will never want to print out 6 x 4s


I am using my dads camera for this trip, a panasonic FZ7 and when the aspect ration is set to 4:3, I have choice of picture size of 6mp, 4m, 3m, 2m

but when I change it to 3:2, I don't have choice of 6m, instead it's 5m or 2.5m only


I know that taking it at high quality is best BUT, on a 2gb card, I get a whole lot more of 5m than I do 6m and I will never blow it up more than 7 x 5 or 8 x 6.

Ideally would like to have it on the 5m setting but am concerned that having the 3:2 ratio is wrong for my 7 x 5 prints.

Can anyone give me the right info please ? Or point me to the info that is in laymans terms ?


What is confusing me is that my other Panasonic camera (FX33) has an aspect ratio of 4:3 for its' 5m setting (and 8m) and its' 3:2 has choices of 7m or 4.5m


Thanks in advance

Phantom_Flan_Flinger

As far as I know, it's something like this.

Most point and click digital cameras use 4:3.
35mm film is 3:2.

If you use 4:3, the actual image is a little bigger than the normal 6x4 or 7x5 prints. You would then have to crop a little of the picture to make it fit, or downsize it which then gives you a white border around the prints.

If you use 3:2, then they should fit 6x4 and 7x5 OK.

As the 3:2 image is slightly smaller than the 4:3, it'll use less pixels. That's why you get different options.

Someone more into photography should maybe be able to explain it a little better.

Stompa

4:3 is the perfect aspect ratio for 8x6 prints.

3:2 is the perfect aspect ratio for 6x4 or 7½x5 prints.

Do you print these yourself or have them professionally done?

alison74

I get them professionally done.

It looks like I would be best to stick with the 3:2 ratio, but can only have the camera (the first one I mentioned) set at 5m which is fine, and not get any enlarged to 8 x 6 without some editing, which is also fine.

But the other camera (my new one) when its set to 3:2 ratio, I only have choices of 7m or 4.5m. Again, 7m takes up too much space on memory card for my long trip, but am I right in thinking 4.5 is more than enough for my 7 x 5 prints (and maybe a couple of 8 x 6's) ??

It's just a nightmare having to get used to 2 new cameras in a few days when I leave next week. My other camera was stolen, it's not that I am disorganised !

isofa

If you have the time, crop and resize to the correct aspect ratio using an image editor such as Photoshop, when you've downloaded the photos, then you can choose which bits get cropped off!

unrich

Picassa has a crop function for 10x15 (4 by 6) and 13x18 (5 by 7) near as dammit.

its easy to use and free.

f1charlie

alison74 wrote: »

But the other camera (my new one) when its set to 3:2 ratio, I only have choices of 7m or 4.5m. Again, 7m takes up too much space on memory card for my long trip, but am I right in thinking 4.5 is more than enough for my 7 x 5 prints (and maybe a couple of 8 x 6's) ??

Memory cards are so cheap these days why not get some more cards? It's better to take you pictures at the highest resolution to give you more options later.

Stompa

alison74 wrote: »

But the other camera (my new one) when its set to 3:2 ratio, I only have choices of 7m or 4.5m. Again, 7m takes up too much space on memory card for my long trip, but am I right in thinking 4.5 is more than enough for my 7 x 5 prints (and maybe a couple of 8 x 6's) ??

It should be fine, see the table here:

http://www.photobox.co.uk/quality.html

Is there any particular reason why you have to go with 7x5 and 8x6? 7½x5 and 9x6 are readily available:

http://www.photobox.co.uk/services.html

and both have an aspect ratio of exactly 3:2 so would not require any cropping.

Stompa

I should add that if you really want 7x5 and 8x6 then 4:3 is probably the best bet. You'd end up with 7"x5¼" (so would need to crop 1/8" top and bottom) and 8"x6" (exact fit).

If you were to use 3:2 you'd end up with 7½"x5" (so would need to crop ¼" off left and right edges) and 9"x6" (so would need to crop ½" off left and right edges).

alison74

Really appreciate everyone's input, I will look around the links and see if I can make sense of them.

I don't need 7 x 5 exactly, I just take them as they come from Jessops or wherever.

My trip away is for 2 months so I will be taking well over 2000 images if other trips are anything to go by and I know you can get CD's burned when abroad, but my friend lost ALL of his pics when getting one burned in Laos last year and I am not prepared to take the risk so would rather have them all on cards I keep safe.

I normally take good shots that are ready to print and go. I don't think I could face having to individually edit every pic if I have 2000 + shots

I had 8gb of memory for my Sony camera that was stolen, which would have been enough for my trip and 5m resolution and whatever ratio it was automatically set at. I couldn't even buy a new Sony as I had memory sticks and Sony now only sell cameras with memory stick pro duo (shorter) so I have had to fork out for new SD cards anyway.

I used play.com which were the cheapest I could find and arrived in 3 days inc day of ordering.

Thanks again for taking time to help me in this pickle.

Stompa

alison74 wrote: »

I normally take good shots that are ready to print and go. I don't think I could face having to individually edit every pic if I have 2000 + shots

You wouldn't need to do that yourself manually, the processor would do it automatically for you, you'd just let them have your images 'as is'.

If your camera is taking JPEG images, then for 7 megapixels each one would probably be less than 3.5MB in size, so 8GB of memory cards ought to be sufficient for 2000+ shots. Don't forget that memory cards can fail as well so it might be prudent to use several smaller cards rather than one large one - at least if the worst happened you'd not lose them all!

You might even consider using some sort of portable storage device, for example:

http://www.picstop.co.uk/Portable-Storage---Viewers/Order_1/Page_1