Firmware version 2.1 for the Panasonic LX3 allows composing and shooting in the 1:1 aspect ratio. I saved this setting as one of the custom modes. This works really well, making it possible to compose on screen using the square format.
My other custom settings are variations of the same theme. One has adaptive sensitivity up to ISO 400 instead of fixed ISO 100. Another uses dynamic b&w film mode.
Today I used mostly the setting for 1:1 aspect ratio, to see whether it makes it easier to "see in square". And it may help, at least it was a novelty and interesting to try out. The images are smaller of course, about 7.5 megapixels, and you could get the same result by using the 4:3 ratio and cropping afterwards. But then it would be harder to learn seeing in this format.
Here are two examples of the square format. It does have some problems, not having a "natural" orientation. I think I'll do some experiments to see whether I can learn to use it more naturally.
I'm really learning to like the new firmware version, especially the ability to remember the zoom range and manual focus distance. Now the camera is even more easy to use, it works as a camera should.
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Yellow Truck
3 hours ago
2 comments:
Yup, I like them both, and the idea of a camera manufacturer to allow for composition in squares is simply genius. This could be easily done in DSLRs as well. Think of the Nikon D3. It can use DX lenses and then crops in-camera to 5 mpx, and it also masks the part of the viewfinder that's out of the smaller frame. How hard would it be to at least overlay a square onto the viewfinder image? The JPEG result would be a square, the RAW would still be a full image, but the metadata in the RAW file could include cropping information. Hard? Not at all. Usefull? Tremendously!
I haven't systematically continued shooting square, but I have it still in one of the presets in the camera.
Now that it is getting towards the darkest time of the year, I try to catch what light and color there is, and square framing is not on top of the things to experiment with.
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