Should I set at 16:9 or 4:3 from my phone camera ?

BADGER.BRAD

BADGER.BRAD

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O.k I had a new phone for Xmas but as I'm not very phone orientated (I've probably only made 20 phone calls) I've not really messed with it until yesterday. I found it was set on 6 Mega pixel at 16:9 but could go to 8 Mega pixel but at a frame ratio (if thats what you call it !) of 4:3 as most of my photo viewing is on a screen of some sort am I going to run into trouble viewing shots took at 4:3 without either losing top or bottom or ending up with bigger blank gaps at each end of the screen ? It's not really something I have ever had a choice about using 35mm film.

I apologize now if this is a stupid question !!!
 
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Not stupid at all.

To emulate 35mm film the ratio would be 3:2

So you have a choice of either of the choices you have available to you.

Shame the phone manufacturer didn't put in a 3:2 ratio.
 
sounds like it is chopping / masking a couple of million pixels off the image to make the 16/9 ratio image
i would stick to the 4/3 ratio and if i wanted 16/9 i could crop it myself
at least that way you have the option
 
cosmicma said:
sounds like it is chopping / masking a couple of million pixels off the image to make the 16/9 ratio image
i would stick to the 4/3 ratio and if i wanted 16/9 i could crop it myself
at least that way you have the option
Click to expand...


That's what I'd do.
 
my note 4 gives more pixels at 16:9
5312x2988

wheras 4:3 gives 3984x2988
 
Set it to the maximum resolution and crop it to whatever ratio you want :)
 
I haven't tried this yet but surely I would have to be careful shooting at 4:3 with the intention of later cropping to fit my screen ratio that I don't do the classic chopping someones head off ( or other part of the image) ??
 
if your taking photographs with the intention of showing them on a TV ( a slide show for example ) just be aware of how the image will look cropped to 16:9 ratio and leave a little room at the top and bottom of your subjects to allow for the crop

the end results will be the same if you crop or the camera crops the image to 16:9
 
So are you saying the image on the Live screen will be cropped or will this display show the end image already cropped ? (does that make sense ? )
 
Displaying 4:3 on a 16:9 screen will have black both sides, it shouldn't crop it automatically, as mentioned if you want to crop close to 16:9 later - to avoid the black both sides - bear in mind heads etc.
In practice modern phones have such large files it won't matter much if you have it set it on 16:9, even though you have then already lost a bit of sensor area.
 
BADGER.BRAD said:
So are you saying the image on the Live screen will be cropped or will this display show the end image already cropped ? (does that make sense ? )
Click to expand...

that depends on what ratio you set the camera to, 16:9 will show the cropped image on the live screen and 4:3 will show the full image without crop

your phones has a 4:3 ratio sensor with an 8 million pixel resolution when you set it to 16:9 ratio all it is doing is cropping the native image ( 4:3 ) to 16:9 ratio in software hence the loss of a couple of million pixels but once it's done that there is no going back to the native 4:3 8 million pixel image, the 2 million pixels it discards to make the 16:9 ratio are lost and this is why it would be preferable to leave the phone camera in 4:3 ratio so you can decide if you want to lose the 2 million pixels by cropping the image yourself or keep them
another added bonus with cropping the image yourself is you can decide where the crop is taken from rather than the camera just cropping equal amounts from the top and bottom

i know it's easier to let the camera do it for you but i'd rather have the option in post
 
I have the habbit of filling the frame (depending on the subject of course) from top to bottom so to try and judge this I think would only lead to disaster. That said I don't really use the phone camera very much only really If I see something when I don't have a main camera with me. Over the next weekend I'll have a go and see if I can work out roughly where the crop is.
The other thing I have noticed with the phone camera is the depth of field seems really deep although aperture seems really large , This photo was taken with an aperture of F2.2 which would give me quite a shallow depth of field using my other cameras. Have you any idea how it achieves this ?
depth.jpg
 
"
The other thing I have noticed with the phone camera is the depth of field seems really deep although aperture seems really large , This photo was taken with an aperture of F2.2 which would give me quite a shallow depth of field using my other cameras. Have you any idea how it achieves this ? "


it's basically down to the sensor size
the smaller the sensor the deeper the perceived depth of field at the same aperture setting compared to a full frame sensor
when you consider the size of sensor in phone camera you probably looking at an F8 / F10 aperture setting on a full frame body to get the same depth of field
this video goes some way explaining it

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f5zN6NVx-hY
 
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Thanks cosmicma, I have seen this video before when I first started (nearly a year ago) but was totally baffled by it ! It now makes a lot more sense so I must be learning something !
 
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