Other (but “classic”) formats

It’s no secret to readers of this site that we use Olympus (plus one Panasonic) cameras from the beginning of our digital time. And small cameras as well as mobile phones and (Micro) Four Thirds cameras use an aspect ratio of 4:3, while your typical DSLR uses a wider 3:2 format which dates back to Oskar Barnack and his invention, the Leica camera.

Recently I was thinking of him when looking at my Panasonic Leica lens which is on one of my cameras most of the time. I’m taking lots of black & white photos with that lens, and I thought why I didn’t also use the format he invented? In horizontal (“landscape”) orientation I like it quite a lot, while in verticals (“portrait”) I prefer 4:3 or even something a bit more square, like 5:4 (remember those old plate cameras? That’s what they used, mostly).

So I’ve set one of my cameras to the 3:2 aspect ratio, and kept it like that. Here are some photos taken with the format:

7e0_2143405-tuna

7e0_2163420bw-arno

7e0_2183424bw-wolfgang

7e0_2218116bw-got-grip

7e0_2223489bw-anthurium

The picture of me was taken by Zuleikha (danke Schätzchen!), the photo of my camera was taken with my other one, and for the last picture I used my 40-150mm Zuiko Digital lens fully zoomed out. That somewhat longer lens handles a lot better with my camera now that I have a grip for it.

As always, if you want the photos bigger, click on them to go to Flickr where you can download them in full resolution.

Thanks for reading and/or viewing.