The fovea centralis is round (i.e. an aspect ration of 1).
And if you tell me that you can (and do) move your eyes to expand that size - well you can move your eyes to expand your vertical field of view just as easily.
For photos and video it makes little difference what you see in peripheral vision.
> well you can move your eyes to expand your vertical field of view just as easily.
Not true, our eyes are optimized for horizontal scanning. We have specialized extraocular muscles for doing this, and as a result horizontal eye scanning relatively is fast, accurate and easy compared to vertical scanning. This has less to do with our eyes being side-by-side (which is a product of our biological symmetry) and more to do with the horizontal world we live in.
Anyone care to chime in why portrait & square aspect ratios seem to work for photos but not for videos? I know the very first film formats were actually square for both moving & static images. Why did video quickly settle on 4:3 / 16:9 while photo explored the portrait, landscape & square formats? Is it really just because of the technical constraints (the device to 'play' the media) or is there a more fundamental, natural reason?
It was done for exactly one reason: To be different.
Whenever video and tv got a certain aspect ratio, film "one upped" it. Part of it was also the size of 35mm film, once they moved the audio track off of the central area it made it wider, so they used that area.
Basically, there is no fundamental reason for it. But these days people are used to it and think it was done because video somehow requires it.
Now that they make lots of money from selling home video they will probably not move too far from 16/9, but it wasn't always so.
It's the same with the poor FPS of film: It makes it look like a "film". Same for graininess. It's not better, people just associate it with movies.
Thanks for the infos! I had thought I read it somewhere, but at the moment, I can't find the facts to support my views (pun not intended).
The closest I can find is (http://reviews.cnet.com/aspect-ratio-guide/)
"At comparable screen sizes, the wide-screen image is a distinct improvement: it offers a larger image, and the horizontal orientation is more akin to how your eyes--next to each other, not on top of one another--view objects."
But that's hardly scientific. Does anyone have studies or so on how widescreens are an improvement and why it's better?
What I can also find is that it's based on 35mm film from way, way in the past, because back then, it was standard material and thus cheaper.
As I mentioned above, it's not so much about our eyes being side-by-side as it is about our world being horizontally organized. Our eye muscles are optimized for horizontal movement (two muscles involved for a horizontal scan, one contract and one relax, where four are involved for vertical movement).
There could also be an "unnatural" habitual reason behind it, as we are trained to be looking at widescreen, widescreen also feels more natural. Doesn't imply that it's better though.
I figure because of the magazine format, which is portrait, and they need to show a "vertical" photo on the page. The old portrait paintings were also vertical as well, to show most of the human body.
Cinemas needed to be "landscape" because of space constraints.
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Actually, the aspect ratio is because our eyes are side-by-side, so a longish, non-square screen is mimicking our eye-view.
No, that's irrelevant.
The fovea centralis is round (i.e. an aspect ration of 1).
And if you tell me that you can (and do) move your eyes to expand that size - well you can move your eyes to expand your vertical field of view just as easily.
For photos and video it makes little difference what you see in peripheral vision.
> well you can move your eyes to expand your vertical field of view just as easily.
Not true, our eyes are optimized for horizontal scanning. We have specialized extraocular muscles for doing this, and as a result horizontal eye scanning relatively is fast, accurate and easy compared to vertical scanning. This has less to do with our eyes being side-by-side (which is a product of our biological symmetry) and more to do with the horizontal world we live in.
Anyone care to chime in why portrait & square aspect ratios seem to work for photos but not for videos? I know the very first film formats were actually square for both moving & static images. Why did video quickly settle on 4:3 / 16:9 while photo explored the portrait, landscape & square formats? Is it really just because of the technical constraints (the device to 'play' the media) or is there a more fundamental, natural reason?
It was done for exactly one reason: To be different.
Whenever video and tv got a certain aspect ratio, film "one upped" it. Part of it was also the size of 35mm film, once they moved the audio track off of the central area it made it wider, so they used that area.
Basically, there is no fundamental reason for it. But these days people are used to it and think it was done because video somehow requires it.
Now that they make lots of money from selling home video they will probably not move too far from 16/9, but it wasn't always so.
It's the same with the poor FPS of film: It makes it look like a "film". Same for graininess. It's not better, people just associate it with movies.
Thanks for the infos! I had thought I read it somewhere, but at the moment, I can't find the facts to support my views (pun not intended).
The closest I can find is (http://reviews.cnet.com/aspect-ratio-guide/) "At comparable screen sizes, the wide-screen image is a distinct improvement: it offers a larger image, and the horizontal orientation is more akin to how your eyes--next to each other, not on top of one another--view objects."
But that's hardly scientific. Does anyone have studies or so on how widescreens are an improvement and why it's better?
What I can also find is that it's based on 35mm film from way, way in the past, because back then, it was standard material and thus cheaper.
As I mentioned above, it's not so much about our eyes being side-by-side as it is about our world being horizontally organized. Our eye muscles are optimized for horizontal movement (two muscles involved for a horizontal scan, one contract and one relax, where four are involved for vertical movement).
http://www.tedmontgomery.com/the_eye/eom.html
There could also be an "unnatural" habitual reason behind it, as we are trained to be looking at widescreen, widescreen also feels more natural. Doesn't imply that it's better though.
yeah, here's also a very in-depth history of widescreen in the film industry: http://www.in70mm.com/news/2010/widescreen/index.htm
I figure because of the magazine format, which is portrait, and they need to show a "vertical" photo on the page. The old portrait paintings were also vertical as well, to show most of the human body.
Cinemas needed to be "landscape" because of space constraints.