Why not round photo's?

[elansprint72]

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Why the apostrophe?

[pop]

Why the apostrophe?

 

Yes, that explains exactly why photographs are not circular. Thank you so much for a useful contribution.

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Sensor ratio 2:3 = 1:1.5

Golden ratio = 1:1.618

 

Not that close....

[pico]

Where did you get that ratio from? The M8 har a 2:3 ratio sensor, as do most cameras (not medium/large format though).

 

Thanks for the correction.

 

I screwed up big time. I transposed the divisor. So much for doing math in my head.

[pico]

Why the apostrophe?

 

It is a cultural thing. I am IgnoramusAmericanus where our maths are backwards, everyone can square the circle, the national tax is regressive, and we have a new political party named after an Indian beverage, and it ain't Lassi.

[Michael Geschlecht]

Hello pico,

 

I think the Indian beverage you are speaking of (Camilla Sinensis) originally comes from China. Including the varieties grown in India.

 

Best Regards,

 

Michael

[NZDavid]

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2/3 = 0.666....

1/PHI ~0.618

 

Thanks, I never knew that, but interesting. I wonder how various sensor sizes compare with the golden mean. Then there is the Fibonacci series. A link between mathematics and aesthetics, perhaps.

 

Obviously there are various (too many!) aspect ratios around, but my basic point was that rectangular pictures are generally more appealing to the eye than round or square or other multi-angled ones (though oval portrait frames were around for a while in the C19, as were cameo portraits a little earlier). Most paintings are still rectangular.

 

Why rectangular pictures should be more aesthetically pleasing is nevertheless still puzzling...

[pop]

Thanks, I never knew that, but interesting. I wonder how various sensor sizes compare with the golden mean. Then there is the Fibonacci series. A link between mathematics and aesthetics, perhaps.

 

Obviously there are various (too many!) aspect ratios around, but my basic point was that rectangular pictures are generally more appealing to the eye than round or square or other multi-angled ones (though oval portrait frames were around for a while in the C19, as were cameo portraits a little earlier). Most paintings are still rectangular.

 

Why rectangular pictures should be more aesthetically pleasing is nevertheless still puzzling...

 

As a matter of fact, the "golden ratio" Phi is a mathematical expression which stands for a rule of aesthetics.

 

I have my doubts whether the oblong really is more pleasing than the oval. It all depends on the "environment". In a baroque church there are lots of paintings of oval and similar shapes which would look really strange were they in any other shape. An oval picture properly framed can be a prominent feature of a room.

 

I suppose it's all a matter of custom.

[Nikkor AIS]

http://rogaltacdesign.smugmug.com/Other/last-of-summer-2010/DSC56523/1067186592_RdCsj-L.jpg

 

 

The Nikkor 8mm 2.8 gives round images. Lots of wasted space inside the 24-36 mm . but I guess it what you do inside that counts

 

Im not sure that I agree the rectangle images are more ascetically pleasing. Although I use both the golden mean and the Fibonacci series in my knife/tool designs and I always felt the 24-36 was close to the perfect ratio, although I never did the math. Technically the square is more efficient than the recatange inside the image circle. My twin lens Rollie come to mind.

 

I did always wonder if a 36mm X 36mm format could have ever taken hold using existing 35 mm lens, even if they needed to be modified.

 

Gregory

[pop]

Just in case there is anyone who does not know it: the Golden Mean (or Golden Ratio) defines the division of a length into to smaller parts such that

 

the whole :: the larger section = the larger section :: the smaller section.

 

This is the expression which gives a magnitude to that ratio:

 

The classical 35mm with its 36mmx24mm image area has a ratio of 3:2 or 1.5:1 or just 1.500. This is not particularly close to 1.6180 as such things go. Hence, the classical Leica image format is held to be ugly by many who actually care for such things.

 

The Golden Ratio applies not obny to oblongs but to ovals as well. In that case you use the lengths of the shorter and the longer axis and the sum of those lengths.

 

If you want to use the largest part of the image provided by a lens, you'd of course use a square format. However, you would use a square with the same diagonal as the 24x36 mm image, not an square image with a side of 36mm.

[mjh]

While the golden ratio was already known by Euclid, the idea that an aspect ratio corresponding to the golden ratio would be aesthetically pleasing is of relatively recent origin, namely in the 19th century. There is no proof that architects in ancient Greece or renaissance painters did consciously use the golden ratio. Where works of art do seem to obey this rule, they do so only roughly. Also psychology has no conclusive proof of a universal preference for an aspect ratio corresponding to the golden ratio. So don’t believe your images would appear more pleasing if only their aspect ratio was closer to Phi.

[pico]

Why rectangular pictures should be more aesthetically pleasing is nevertheless still puzzling...

 

Not so puzzling. It is probably a cultural thing and not something about the fundamental human psyche.

[Michael Geschlecht]

Hello Everybody,

 

I actually prefer a square format myself. It's one of the reasons, another being interchangable backs, I have often seriously thought about changing to a Hasselblad.

 

If you actually look out of your own eye (round) without moving it @ what it sees (a lot - perhaps a 35 or 28) and compare that to standard lenses & formats, horizontal or vertical and what people think they see (more or less a 90) still round (revolving back helps here) you will see that no standard lens or format approaches either the concentrated-on or the totality of a persons vision.

 

What normal lenses & standard formats are is a series of compromises which allow capture of images in a technologically do-able manner adjusted to the parameters of technological feasibility available on the day these mechanisms were created with the occasional inclusion of a smattering of marketing, etc.

 

Best Regards,

 

Michael

[Michael Geschlecht]

Hello Ming Rider,

 

BTW: I just noticed: Welcome to the Forum.

 

Best Regards,

 

Michael

[adan]

The "Golden Rectangle" has a good press agent. It is a "pretty good" rectangle - but there are other "pretty good" rectangles, which I'll get to.

 

The key to the GR is not so much its shape as a single object, but how it can be subdivided into a square and another GR, which can be subdivided again into a square and a GR...ad infinitum: File:FakeRealLogSprial.svg - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

 

Think of it as the "rule of thirds" on steroids, for composition WITHIN a rectangular image. Putting the key content of a picture on any one of those intersections may be visually pleasing.

 

The architect Le Corbusier proposed (but never built) an art musuem with a floor plan like that diagram - viewers followed a "Golden Spiral" through smaller and smaller galleries.

 

The Golden Rectangle falls, proportionately, halfway between the 35mm frame and the HDTV format.

 

1:1.5....1.1618....1.7777

 

Divide any Fibonacci number into the next (larger) fibonacci number, and the ratio approximates the Golden Mean. The approximations getting better and better the larger the Fibonacci numbers used - e.g. 5/3 = 1.6666.......8/5 = 1.6....... 987/610= 1.618032786885246

______________________

 

But there are some other interesting rectangles:

 

The root-2 rectangle - sides in the proportions of 1.41421... - which can be split in half to produce two root-2 rectangles. Approximated with round numbers, a 20 x 14 rectangle splits to form two 14 x 10 rectangles, which split to form 7 x 10 rectangles, which split to form 5 x 7 rectangles.....and so on.

 

National Geographic's pages are root-2 rectangles, which allows NG designers to intermix 35mm images as spreads and single pages with identical amounts of cropping (unlike the square-er format of most magazines, which makes for stubbier full-page shots and more panoramic spreads)

 

The root-4 rectangle, in which the ratio of the sides is 2:1. A key rectangle in Japanese architecture and interior or graphic design. The "tatami mat" rectangle.

 

(root-n rectangles taken as a group form the Dynamic rectangle series: Dynamic rectangle - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia) )

 

The pi(greek letter)-gnomon rectangle, which has sides in the ratio 1 to 1.314159........ A very close approximation of standard 8.5 x 11 US letter paper - 8.5 x 1.314159 = 11 (and a bit).

 

In 2D design or geometry, the "gnomon" is what one cuts off any rectangle to make it into a square - the left-over bit.

[bill]

Y/know what I like about this thread? I am actually learning something in a painless and interesting way.

 

Regards,

 

Bill

[elgenper]

...

But there are some other interesting rectangles:

 

The root-2 rectangle - sides in the proportions of 1.41421... - which can be split in half to produce two root-2 rectangles. Approximated with round numbers, a 20 x 14 rectangle splits to form two 14 x 10 rectangles, which split to form 7 x 10 rectangles, which split to form 5 x 7 rectangles.....and so on.

 

National Geographic's pages are root-2 rectangles, which allows NG designers to intermix 35mm images as spreads and single pages with identical amounts of cropping (unlike the square-er format of most magazines, which makes for stubbier full-page shots and more panoramic spreads)

 

....

 

It´s not just NG; the ´A´ series of paper formats (which is almost universally used in the civilized, metric parts of the world) consists of root-2 rectangles. A0 is defined as having an area of exactly 1 square meter, and the aspect ratio 1.4142.... Then, A1 is an A0 halved, and so on. A4, the most common size, is 210 x 297 mm, with an area of 1/16 sq m. In practical use, it is very convenient; if you´re out of A5 blanks, just fold and cut some A4:s.

 

For reasons unknown, there is a widespread belief that the ´A´ series aspect ratio is the same as the golden ratio, which is obviously not the case.

[adan]

That's interesting about the A papers - I think I knew that at one point, but had forgotten it.

 

Here in the US, one local store carries Epson Luster paper in the "A3" format, and I've always liked it, and wished I could get both more papers in A3, and more A sizes in general. It is a very nice compromise shape for printing Barnack-shaped pictures, 4:3 digital shots (Digilux 2) and 6x6 squares.

 

The "C" format (1:1.3-ish) is also nice - basically 4 US "letter" pages combined. I tend to use C, A3 and US letter papers - and skip the B and Super-B (11x17, 13x19) sizes as TOO rectangular.

 

Hard to find portfolios and mattes and frames in the "A" formats over here, though.

[giordano]

Hi Andy, it looks as if we have different understandings of "B" and "C" paper sizes. The ISO sizes B0, B1... and C0, C1... alll have the exactly same aspect ratio as the A series, 1.414:1.

 

B0 is 1000mm x 1414mm, B1 is 707mm x 500mm and so on. So B5 is midway between A4 and A5 and the same shape as either. The C series is normally only used for envelopes. It's defined in terms of the A and B series but in practice a Cn envelope takes An paper flat, An-1 paper folded once or An-2 folded twice.

 

What do A and B mean in US paper sizes?

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Hallo,

Look here: Interesting Leica gear

[adan]

John, my Epson 3800 printer "page setup" options lists:

 

US C 17 x 22 in

US B 11 x 17 in

Super A3 / B 13 x 19 in

 

Which also corresponds to the labelling on the paper boxes (or I'd be in real trouble )

 

So far as I know the "A" sizes (A2-A6) are the same "European" ones elgenper mentioned - "A3" is the only one I use and for which I can get paper.

 

Also available in Epson Page Setup are JB3, JB4, and B5 JIS, which seem to be approximately 7 x10, 10 x 14, and 14 x 20 inches - but they aren't ones I've ever used for any purpose.