Hi All,

I hope you won't mind answering what may well be a dumb question.

For all the time I've owned a digital camera I have never known what the different "Aspect Ratio" settings are for. My new Sony DSC HX1 has settings for 3:2, 16:9, 4:3, and mebbe others.

As a matter of policy I have commonly used the highest mega pixel setting,( in this camera's case it is 9,) so I get the best resolution and I can shrink the photo for e-mail or posting on AR.

If one or several of you wouldn't mind going on at length about what the different ratio's mean I'd appreciate it.

Aspect ratio is bascially the relationship between the height and width of the photo.

http://photo.net/equipment/digital/basics/


No need to use the 9 mega pixel setting when you want to email photos. Keep the file size small becase generally a persons monitor does not have the ability to show the higher quality files.

If you view your pics on a wide screen TV 16:9 will fit the screen better with out stretching it.
If you prefer standard type photos 4:3 is like the old snap shot format, but then you get the black bars on the edges of the screen.

For printing you should use the highest pixel setting, it lets you print bigger prints in good quality.

Here's a chart to show print size for pixel count.
http://www.design215.com/toolbox/megapixels.php

That is a guide you can do various cheats to get larger prints from the same source photo, but in general more pixels is better and don't cause any problems with the big fast memory cards we have now.

It's real simple, Scott.

Just imagine the numbers as representing inches. So a 4:3 image could be four inches wide by 3 inches tall, or any equal division or multiple of 4x3, i.e. 2x1.5, 8x6, 16x12, etc.

The others represent the same thing.

3:2 is the same aspect ratio as a 35mm slide ratio. 4:3 is pretty much like an older analogue TV screen and 16:9 is typically the size used on the newer flat screen TVs.

And lastly, as cheap as memory cards are, you should ALWAYS shoot at the highest resolution your camera offers, even if you plan to e-mail an image. There might be a time when you will have another use for that same image in much higher resolution.

Ok, I'm following you guys so far and like you say I do always use the highest resolution setting.

Now I'm still unclear on the "why"?.

I understand the VGA setting for example. I don't want to use it but if I were to want to take pictures exclusively for e-mailing I could use this setting for that. Why would a person want to take pictures in 3:2 or 4:3 aspect ratio instead of just the 9 megapixel setting?

Thanks for helping with this.

Depends on your preference and the way your camera works, I like 16:9 for the wide screen view, but my cam won't do RAW files in that format so I use 4:3 and crop.

VGA is a type of monitor connector from IBM, nothing to do with photo resolution or format.
It's the usually blue socket on the back of a PC.

I recommend you use the 3:2, which allows you to print the standard 4X6 inch print without any cropping (as with the small Canon Selphy printers), or if you want to have professional prints done the 8X12 inch size is now pretty common.