 Joseph L. Elkhorne |
4:3 and 3:2 and the rest Back in the Dark Ages, I never thought about aspect ratio. I did my own darkroom work, film, paper, messy chemicals. Some may remember 3-1/2 x 5 inch was a standard photo print in the 1950s. It wasn't until I got a Bronica C and started having trouble with composition of enlargements that I discovered I was always composing in the viewfinder. Indeed, when I looked back at really good 35mm negatives did I realise the problem had always been there. So I started to wonder about the why of 8x10, 5x7 and '6 mm square'. And why 35 mm film was 24 x 36 ... Near as I can figure, the early plate cameras [before my time!] were based on standard available glass sizes, thus 8x10 and so on ... The 35mm question bugged me for years and lo! now I have the Internet and the answer. Oskar Barnack designed the Leica around available standard motion picture film. This ran vertically through the movie camera, yielding a 24x18mm frame. So the frame size was doubled. But! the rationale behind the aspect ratio was actually due to a concept called 'the golden rectangle' which he thought gave the ideal image. Anyway, once I lost the constraint of equipment and started enlarging full frames, both 3:2 and 1:1 square, my pictures were more satifsying. Then of course, I discovered digital and had to work out the 4:3 "why it is so" and understood the process from the nature of the computer monitor and standard TV. So it all makes sense, in an indirect way. And now we have HDTV 16:9 and so on. Learning curves are asymptotic.
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- Gregory LaGrange Contact Gregory LaGrange Gregory LaGrange's Gallery |
Should've filed those patent papers when you discovered digital. You'd be sittin' in a pretty good position by now. Of course
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