Aspect Ratios can play a big part in how your photos turn out when you print them. Most common Digital SLRs have an aspect ratio of 3:2. This equates to an exact 4×6 inch print without any cropping at all, so what you see in your digital image will print to 4×6inches exactly. Problem is that as soon as you start to go larger than 4×6, say 5×7 or 8×10, a 3:2 aspect ratio will result in some serious cropping of the picture happening.
Fear not my friends, Olympus and a small number of other manufacturers have a 4:3 aspect ratio on their Digital SLRs. The draw back tho is that a 4×6inch print will have cropping but the big plus is that as you go larger the picture will have significantly less cropping happening. If you’ve been following for a while you will now that I have an Olympus E500 right now and I can tell you that a print at 30×40inches the picture is not cropped at all.
Now on to the even cooler bit of news, my new Camera, which as you now know from the post below, is an E30 and it has a multi aspect ratio setting. I can now set the ratio I want from 4:3, 3:2, 16:9, 6:6, 5:4, 7:6, 7:5 and 3:4. This gives me a greater control over the subject I am photographing given that I am setting the aspect ratio with the knowledge that I will be enlarging the resulting photo to a specific size and will have less to worry about loss from the resultant cropping that would normally happen if I was just locked to either 4:3 or 3:2.
In case you’re wondering, the Olympus lens system is Four Thirds hence the 4:3 aspect ratio.
