Standard Aspect Ratios in Travel Photography

Introduction

Using standard aspect ratios in our travel photos is essential. But what do we mean by standard formats in photography? Thanks to this page, this topic will have no secrets for you.

What's the Aspect Ratio

While editing a photo with our phone or computer, we may fall into the temptation to randomly cut a photo as we like, without considering there are very precise rules that should be respected according to the use we plan to do with the picture.

The aspect ratio, also known as the format, keeping it simple, is simply the proportion between the width and the height of a picture.

The main purpose of standard formats in photography is to find the ideal aesthetic ratio between the long side and the short side of the photograph, in order to achieve balanced images.

Most of the standards derive from photography with films and have been maintained unchanged over the years. Other aspect ratios have been created or gained popularity with the coming of digital photography. When you resize an image, it's a good idea to keep the rule of thirds in mind. It helps you end up with a composition that feels nicely balanced. If you'd like to dig deeper into the topic, check out our dedicated page:

Rule of Thirds and Golden Ratio The Rule of Thirds, the Golden Ratio, and how to balance the framing of your photos. Reading time: 12 min.

3:2 Aspect Ratio

Let's start with the standard format par excellence, the 35 mm of the films of analogic reflex cameras. With a ratio of 3:2, the rectangle is stable, well-proportioned, and absolutely perfect for horizontal photos for almost any subject. Most of the cameras use this standard. The most common print of any photo is 15x10 centimeters, or 4×6 inches in the USA; that is exactly in the 3:2 aspect ratio, making it the most used and more recognized format ever. In vertical images it's generally referred as 2:3, but it's not the ideal choice.

16:9 Aspect Ratio

The 16:9 format is relatively young, but it's a well-known aspect ratio, as it's the one used in almost every television and computer monitor. It's perfect for panoramic photography because it makes the image as close as possible to human vision. It's the best choice if you want to show your travel photo on your TV, as it fills the screen without black bands. It's widely used in smartphone photography, as it fills the display well. A few years ago it was almost a sin to choose it for vertical photography; now in its 9:16 form is almost the standard in the social networks.

21:9 Aspect Ratio

The 21:9 format is highly cinematic and is known as Ultra-Wide. It's the aspect ratio used to broadcast cinema movies, and it has become an increasingly common standard in the world of computers. However, the reason we mention it here is different: it represents the maximum limit reached by modern smartphones. Practically every phone on the market offers an aspect ratio somewhere between 21:9 and 16:9. The market is so vast that listing every single option would be pointless, but 19.5:9 and 20:9 are the most common.

1:1 Aspect Ratio

An unconventional format, but sometimes used in photography, is the square format. With an aspect ratio of 1:1, it works only for a few photos, as it gives the idea of a cutted frame, but is it's also very balanced. If your travel photo is greatly symmetric, it may be a winning choice, positioning the symmetry line in the center. Some professional photographers shoot in this format with digital backs, but the photo is generally framed into most common formats because of the difficult composition with this aspect ratio. Square aspect ratio is widely used for the profile pictures in most of the social networks.

3:4 Aspect Ratio

4:3 was the historical format of the old CRT televisions. Today it's almost unused, but it still remains the preferred aspect ratio for vertical travel photography. Since portrait photos are taller than they are wide, it's more accurate to refer to it as 3:4 format. This format provides a greater sense of balance compared to 2:3, so we recommend shooting with some extra margin at the top or bottom. This way, you can later crop out the excess part of the photo, since the camera actually shoots in 3:2, which is taller.

4:5 Aspect Ratio

The 5:4 aspect ratio has almost been forgotten, but it had a comeback thanks to social networks, which often recommend it for vertical shots. In this case, however, it's more accurate to refer to it as 4:5. As you may have noticed, it's extremely similar to 3:4, only slightly taller. If you're curious about a bit of history, the 5:4 come from photographic printing, just like the 7:5, the 5:3, or the panoramic 7:3. All these exotic aspect ratios comes from the inch-based sizes of photographic paper used in the past, such as the 4×5 inch, the 5×7 inch, or the 8×10 inch formats. Nowadays, the most commonly used photo papers have different formats, but a few printers still have these formats available.

Standard Resolutions

Now that we perfectly master the different standard formats for cropping a photo, remember to choose a recognized aspect ratio for your images, rather than resizing them arbitrarily. The more attentive among you could have noticed that an aspect ratio is not all we need; sometimes we also need to stick to a specific resolution.

Most of the times all we'll explain in the next chapters is almost a useless complication, since in the modern era it's really uncommon to be forced to use specific resolutions, but there are different situations where understanding what the ideal resolution is can make a big difference.

What Are Megapixels?

One of the most common terms in digital photography is megapixel; although it may seem a difficult concept, it's a really simple thing: it's the maximum resolution reachable by the camera of that device. The topic could be wide, both because some misinterpet the megapixels with the quality of the camera, which is not correct, and also because sometimes devices decide to shoot at a lower resolution, expecially in the night.

Since the topic of this article is different and we also want to keep things easy, we'll avoid explaining the concept of pixel binning, limiting this chapter to a list of the most common resolutions of the more used sensors.

You should notice that the aspect ratio sometimes is 3:2, in professional full-frame cameras, and sometimes is 4:3, in smartphones and compact cameras. Megapixels are simply the multiplication of the horizontal resolution by the vertical resolution.

• 200 Megapixels: 16,320 x 12,240
• 108 Megapixels: 12,000 x 9,000
• 61 Megapixels: 9,030 x 6,772
• 50 Megapixels: 8,688 x 5,792
• 24 Megapixels: 6,000 x 4,000
• 20 Megapixels: 5,472 x 3,648
• 12 Megapixels: 4,000 x 3,000

Publishing on Social Media

With the advent of smartphones and social networks, our photographic habits are changing. Vertical photos are becoming increasingly popular, with 9:16 and 4:5 formats dominating. In the case of horizontal pictures, the square format 1:1 is more and more suggested, althought we feel to suggest choosing rectangular formats. In this case, 4:5 and 3:2 are the most commonly used.

The photographic resolution of modern phones is generally way bigger than what it's needed for publishing, so the app will automatically reduce the image to the most appropriate size, usually suggesting a crop which suites the graphics of the different social networks. Usually there isn't much to do: when you publish a photo, everything is handled automatically, so there's no need to complicate things.

If you are a photographer shooting with a DSLR, you should always store your photos in the classic 3:2, which is the photographic standard par excellence. When you want to publish the photo on a social network, you can follow the 1080 rule: exporting the photo with a horizontal resolution of 1080 pixels is practically always the right choice for vertical photos. If your picture is horizontal, 2160 pixels are widely used as high-quality pictures.

Print your Photos

Knowing the resolution corresponding to the different megapixels is relatively useless information, but it may be useful to know how many megapixels you need for a perfectly sharp print. We don't want to annoy you with concepts like DPI, so let's go straight to the point.

• Prints 4 x 6 in, or 10 x 15 cm: suggested 2.1 megapixels, 1,770 x 1,180
• Prints 8 x 12 in, or 20 x 30 cm: suggested 8.4 megapixels, 3,543 x 2,362
• Prints 12 x 18 in, or 30 x 45 cm: suggested 18.8 megapixels, 5,315 x 3,543
• Prints 16 x 24 in, or 40 x 60 cm: suggested 33.5 megapixels, 7,087 x 4,724
• Prints 30 x 45 in, or 76 x 114 cm: suggested 120.8 megapixels, 13,465 x 8,976

The numbers above refer to the best quality possible in professional photo printers; even using a slightly worse resolution, the quality will be absolutely satisfying. Take the numbers as an approximate amount, you don't need to aim for perfection. The needs of the printers are flexible.

TVs Displays and Monitors

One case where aiming for the perfect resolution may be a good idea is when you want to cast your travel photos on big displays, such as your television or the monitor of your computer. In this case, using the display's native resolution will give a slightly sharper definition. Let's see together the most common resolutions.

• HD Ready: 1,280 x 720 for monitors and 1,360 x 768 for TVs.
• Full HD: 1,920 x 1,080 is almost the standard for TVs from 32 to 43 inches.
• 2K: 2,560 x 1,440 is almost the standard for PC gaming monitors.
• 4K: 3,840 x 2,160 is almost the standard for TVs bigger than 40 inches.
• 5K: 5,120 x 2,880 mainly professional PC monitors for photo editing.
• 8K: 7,680 x 4,320 high-end televisions.

There are also ultra-wide screens with an aspect ratio of 21:9, which are rather uncommon in televisions but are becoming more and more used for computers.

• WFHD: 2,560 x 1,080, also known as ultra-wide 1080p.
• WQHD: 3,440 x 1,440, also known as ultra-wide 1440p.
• WUHD: 5,120 x 2,160, also known as 5k2k.

The world of mobile displays is even more fragmented, and, generally, the native resolution should be almost completely ignored. The quality of smartphone screens is so high that your phone has to pretend to have a lower resolution; otherwise, the text would appear too small. But don't worry, this doesn't reduce the quality, since the definition is increased. We should explain the concepts of scaling and PPI, but that would be unnecessarily complicated. So let's take a look at some of the most common resolutions, even if they are of limited practical relevance.

• Low-end smartphones: 720 x 1,600
• Mid-range smartphones: 1,080 x 2,340 or 1,080 x 2,400
• High-end smartphones: 1,206 x 2,622 or 1,440 x 3,120

Conclusion

We hope you liked this page on the standard photographic formats, proportions, and aspect ratios. Before saying goodbye, we would suggest you read our home page, with all the articles we wrote about Cortina d'Ampezzo.

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