> > Following the link posted by Liz, I came across another short article > (blogpost?) on about.com written by her, > http://photography.about.com/od/developingandprinting/qt/ImageFormats.h > tm > > I liked the subject: I thought it was the first time that I've seen > somebody discussing different aspect ratios of the prints of different > standard sizes and the planning needed for that. >
We have discussed it here before. Not often, but occasionally and mostly related to the question of why people crop their photos to fit paper sizes, rather than cropping the paper to fit the photo. > I've discussed briefly a related question earlier here, on PDML, in > some > comments that I personally tend to favor two aspect ratios : 2:3 and > 1:1 > (aka 6x6 :-) ). I use whatever the sensor / film uses, so 2:3 and 4:3. However, since I've had Lightroom I have cropped photos to either 1:1 or 2:1, mainly when I've photographed them with that in mind. With the Leica M8 the framelines are so inaccurate that you're almost forced to crop to get the framing you used at shutter release time. [...] > > I also would challenge this statement: > "Many cameras today record photographs in roughly a 3:2 ratio. This > means that the long side is 1.5 times as long as the short side. This > is > the reason 4x6 has become a popular print size." > I believe the reason (or to be exact, one of the main reasons) why 4x6 > has become a popular print size is that the negative size on the 35mm > film was 24x36mm, which has the same aspect ratio. I believe the reason why the size 4x6", as opposed to the aspect ratio 2:3, is popular has more to do with viewing distance. Harald Mante writes about this in his excellent book Photo Design: "In looking at a picture, the viewing distance from the eyes should be twice the length of the diagonal of the picture. Since the normal reading distance is from 12 to 16 inches, the ideal size for a photograph [...] would be from 3.5 x 4.75 in. (diagonal about 6 in.) to 4.5x6.25 (diagonal 8 in). [...] Pictures which are too small become mere spots: if too large [...] they are for the most part examined only in detail, because it may become impracticable to view them at the requisite distance.". People should also take this into account when posting pictures to the web, but of course it's difficult to come up with the best viewing distance. Average arm's length is normally claimed, but it varies with age. If we settle on 25" then the picture diagonal should be about 12" and the 2:3 sides about 6x9" <http://www.ankrumassociates.com/articles/viewing-distance-at-computer-works tations.html> And that brings me round to one of my pet hates, which is oversized picture books, especially photography books. They print the photographs far too large for comfortable viewing. [...] -- PDML Pentax-Discuss Mail List PDML@pdml.net http://pdml.net/mailman/listinfo/pdml_pdml.net to UNSUBSCRIBE from the PDML, please visit the link directly above and follow the directions.
