6.2 Aspect Ratio

Menu Position MENU --> 1 --> Aspect ratio

What it Does Changes the shape of the images taken. from this to this .

Recommended Setting 3:2, which is 100% of what the sensor can capture.

 

 

The aspect ratio is simply the ratio of the width to the height. A standard 6” x 4” print, for example, has a ratio of 6:4 which, when reduced, yields 3:2 (and that’s what I usually shoot). Standard definition (analog) television screens have an aspect ratio of 4:3, whereas HDTV is a bit wider, at 16:9.

Figure 6-1: Changing the Aspect Ratio to 16:9 will throw away pixels (as shown by the grey areas) in order to get the desired shape. (This is true of .jpg only – shooting RAW captures the entire 3:2 frame, regardless of the setting of Aspect Ratio.)

Be aware that when switching to 16:9 mode, the top and bottom of your composition gets chopped off (see graphic depiction in Figure 6-1). This setting only affects .jpg’s, though.

If you’re shooting a RAW file, the camera still captures the entire image, but makes a note that you shot it in some other aspect ratio. It is up to the program that opens the RAW file to look for that flag and know to crop it upon opening. Sony’s IDC software, for example, shows you the entire RAW file but, noting that you shot in 16:9 mode, visually “grays out” the top and the bottom, as shown in Figure 6-1, although the image is still a 3:2 image.

When you’re shooting in any of the aspect ratio modes, the camera’s Live View shows you what the final composition will look like before you shoot.

 

6.3 Quality

Menu Position MENU --> 1 --> Quality

What it Does Changes the kind of image that is written to the memory card. You can choose between 3 kinds of .jpg, RAW, or both RAW and JPG

Recommended Setting This is an intensely personal choice. RAW + JPG might be the best of all worlds, but it also takes up a lot of memory (and writing time) per shot

 

Chapter 15 explains the tradeoffs between shooting with .jpg and RAW. In a nutshell, though: .jpg images are compressed to take up less space on your memory card, at the expense of some information which usually your eye and brain cannot perceive. RAW, on the other hand, captures all the information directly from the sensor and shoves it onto the memory card without any processing at all (although there is a little lossy compression going on; again see Chapter 15 for details). With RAW, standard image processing functions, such as applying the white balance, sharpness, contrast, color space, etc. settings happens later on your computer. RAW will give you the highest possible quality that the camera is capable of capturing, and also a few stops’ more dynamic range, but it requires computer post-processing to make the images look great. RAW is also a proprietary format, and not all image editing software will know how to open this newest version of .ARW (Alpha RaW) files.

As a file size comparison, I set my camera up on a tripod and took five shots of a single scene, with Image Size set to “L:24M” and Aspect ratio set to 3:2 and ISO set to 400 to produce an average amount of noise. (.jpg images tend to take up more space the more noise they have). Then I compared them all to the equivalent “JPG Quality” compression settings used in Photoshop. Check out the table below for how they all compare. This is the nature of .jpg’s; the file size is very much content-dependent. Here are the different file sizes used by each:

 

Image Format	File Size	JPG Quality Equivalent in Photoshop
Standard (.jpg)	4.0 MB	Quality = 10+
Fine (.jpg)	6.2 MB	Quality = 11+
Extra Fine (.jpg)	12.5 MB	Quality = 12+
RAW (.arw)	24.2 MB
RAW + JPEG produces 2 files	24.2 MB (.arw) + 6.2 MB (.jpg)

 

The sizes of .jpgs can vary greatly. So if you try this experiment yourself, don’t be surprised if your numbers differ by a factor of two or more. This is why the “Images Remaining” counter shows you conservative numbers – often you can fit more images on a card than what the camera shows you when an empty card is inserted. The camera never knows how large your .jpgs are going to be. It is also interesting to note that, even for the “standard” (lowest quality) .jpg setting, the compression is very conservative, and the image quality is still quite high. The image quality setting has no effect on RAW files.

So, in my personal opinion, it’s always best to record your images at the largest size (X. Fine and/or RAW) that you can afford; as you can rarely predict ahead of time if a 4”x6” print or a 30” x 40” poster will be needed. Memory cards are pretty cheap compared to what you just spent on this camera, and the cost of hard disks in terms of dollars per gigabyte continues to drop.