It is often said that the best way to become a better photographer is to invest time in making images, rather than invest money in gear.
I wholeheartedly agree, however, I have been sidelined for much of the past couple of months with a painful, debilitating hip injury. Well – it’s not so much an injury – but more an existing condition (femoroacetabular impingement) that has been exacerbated by a recent fall.
As a result, instead of getting out and about making images, I have spent a lot of time in front of my computer watching photography tutorial videos, looking at the work of other photographers, and reading a lot of photoblogs.
One video I stumbled across recently was about exposure by Alex Armitage. It wasn’t so much the discussion about exposure that intrigued me but it was more the way he used a specific aspect ratio as a creative tool to good effect when creating his images.
I’ve never really thought too much about aspect ratios other than that 3:2 is the standard for 35mm film, full-frame and crop sensor digital cameras; and that there is also 4:3 – the micro-four thirds standard – and of course 4:3 was the aspect ratio of television way, way back in the day. My dislike of the 4:3 aspect ratio is in fact one of the 5 reasons I went back to a DSLR from a mirrorless M43 camera.
But to cut to the chase I was particularly taken with Alex Armitage’s use of an aspect ratio I can’t ever recall hearing about before – X-pan, or 65:24.
I realise that unconstrained cropping can be used to similar effect but I had to try X-pan!
Unfortunately my (new) Nikon D7500 can only produce still images in 3:2 so any images using the X-pan aspect ratio would need to be created in post processing. And being partially immobilised I couldn’t get out and about to create new images, so into my photo archives I went.
Using aspect ratio as a creative tool
Motueka Estuary Mudflats was the starting image for my first X-pan creation.
The jetty was supposed to lead your eye into the mid-section of the scene, but on reflection I decided that there was just too much mudflat, too many grasses and too much jetty dominating the foreground.
So by cropping the image to the X-pan (65:24) aspect ratio the “expansiveness” of the scene is retained while the jetty and mudflat have disappeared making the small boat more the focal point of the scene.
Plus of course a little doctoring of the sky (not replacement!) and vibrancy added to the trees provides a bit of pop to the overall view (I think…)
My second attempt at using aspect ratio as a creative tool was to apply the same 65:24 ratio to an older photograph of Monkey Island at a lovely beach not far from my home.
Here is the original image…
And here is the X-pan version in which the band of dark cloud is gone as is much of the foreground, tightening up the whole image.
And number 3….the original image…
Converted to X-pan 65:24 aspect ratio….
Again the background (sky) and foreground (water) have been eliminated by the wide crop.
What I really love about this wide-angle aspect ratio is the way it can change the story and feel of the original image, merely by cutting out large swathes of foreground and/or background.
Of course I am not for one minute suggesting that you (or I for that matter) should go out and shoot everything in the X-pan format because not all subjects will work with it, but it is worth trying and having fun with X-pan, and maybe other aspect ratios too.
Not everyone is lucky enough to have a Hasselblad X2D that has the 65:24 aspect ratio “built-in”, so a certain degree of anticipation and guesswork is required in capturing that initial image to convert after the event in post, If however, your camera has X-pan built in, I’d love to see some of your sample images.
For the record the photographs in this story were post-processed with DxO Photolab 8 and the Nik Collection.
I think an alternative to cropping the 3:2 image to the 65:24 aspect ratio may be to use Photoshop’s “Generative Expand” feature where the image canvas is “expanded” beyond the original limits. The feature then “predicts” what the expanded area would look like based on the image content adjacent to the canvas expansion (i.e. AI creates the image).
How to use generative expand in Photoshop?
AI Overview
To use Generative Expand in Photoshop, select the Crop tool, expand the canvas by dragging the handles, and then click “Generative Expand” to fill the new area with AI-generated content.
Here’s a more detailed breakdown:
1. Open your image and select the Crop tool:
Open the image you want to work with in Photoshop.
Select the Crop tool from the toolbar.
2. Expand the canvas:
Click and drag the handles on the crop border to expand your canvas in the desired direction.
3. Trigger Generative Expand:
A “Generative Expand” button will appear in the contextual taskbar.
Click the button to initiate the AI-generated content.
Alternatively, you can select “Generative Expand” from the Fill dropdown in the options bar.
4. (Optional) Enter a text prompt:
You can optionally enter a text prompt to guide the AI’s generation, or leave it blank for automatic suggestions.
5. Generate and choose a variation:
Click “Generate” to fill the expanded area with newly generated content.
Choose one of the generated options from the Properties panel.
HiEd – thanks for your comment. It’s a nice wee tutorial in itself. I understand where you are coming from, however I have never been a Photoshop user and never will be. I tried the regenerative ears/paint function in On1 Photo RAW once and when it replaced a couple of people with a wedding party! – I decided AI was not for me me. Cheers, Rick
There’s an app available for iOS, I don’t know if it’s available for Android, called XP4N that takes photos in the 65:24 aspect ratio. It’s either free or cheap (a few USD), I don’t recall if I had to pay for it. It comes with a small collection of filters that attempt to emulate various film stocks. You might enjoy messing around with it. Yeah it’s a phone app, not a camera, but it’s a fun way to experiment with the aspect ratio.
Thanks for that wee snippet of information Rick. I’m are there are other readers who, like me, will check the app out.
Cheers,
Rick