I wrote an ebook many years ago about aspect ratios. It was a topic very dear to my heart at the time, because most of the cameras available a decade ago were strictly 3:2.
It is my opinion that 3:2 is a difficult ratio to compose in, and it is perhaps the no.1 reason for many folks struggling with composition. So back around 2011 I wrote a very short e-Book about it. In it, I advocated for cameras that allowed the user to work in ratios that are a little easier to work in (4:5 and 6:7 for instance).
Forthcoming new e-Book about composing using different aspect ratios
We didn’t have mirrorless cameras at the time, and few cameras allowed you to work in anything other than 3:2. When they did, such as the Nikon D3X and D800, they only allowed you to pre-visualise on the preview screen on the back. The optical viewfinder still showed you 3:2.
Things have changed now, and I’m grateful to see that mirrorless systems now duplicate the preview screen in the viewfinder. If you choose 4:5, then you see that ratio in the eye piece as well as the preview screen.
I feel that I need to now re-write my aspect ratio e-book. A sort of update, but hopefully with a decade’s worth of observations about working in different ratios. So this summer I will be working on a complete rewrite of this ebook.
The area of the frame should be considered a canvas. A blank one, where we can choose to place objects within the scene. But we do tend to have a preference for objects sitting in the middle to lower regions of the frame. We need some exercises to force our eye to see beyond the central part of the frame, and so I am going to think about some exercises for inclusion in this e-Book.
I see the same compositional errors time and time again as a workshop leader. I have come to the conclusion that there are issues with how we see in every day life, that blind us when we compose. We really need to learn to explore the whole image area when composing. We also need to learn to explore variations of composition whilst on location.
I believe that most of our issues at failing to compose well, are mostly due to a lack of confidence to go outside our own comfort zone. Looking for more dynamic compositions requires a boldness that can only come from being comfortable at pushing objects around the frame more, and utilising more of that canvas space. This is something I wish to explore more in this new ebook. It’s time for a rewrite.