23. Shooting square
I fell in love with the 1:1 aspect ratio/square photos when I started using Instagram around 2011. 1:1 was the default for the in-app camera and Instagram could only display square images. My passion for the square was solidified when Chatbooks launched as an inexpensive fast way to make books from your Instagram feed and I ordered a few.
But, I moved away from my iPhone as my main art camera when I got my Fuji X-T3 and with that move, stopped shooting square. I like to shoot in RAW and there is no way to change (what Fuji calls) Image Size when the camera is set to RAW. I thought I had only two choices: Switch to JPEGS and shoot square—or stick with RAW and be stuck with the camera’s native 3:2 aspect ratio.
I always knew I could crop any photo as a square—but I wanted to look through the viewfinder, compose my shot and not have to crop later.
But! Recently, I figured out how to shoot square in RAW!1 And now I am once again exploring the square. Here are some initial results.
Experimenting means not always succeeding. While some photos work nicely feeling held in by the square, others need the room to spread their wings. This image turns out to be better in 3:2.
I will continue to experiment with this (and may even set aside a few weeks this summer for nothing but square images). Stay tuned.
Warmly,
josh
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How do you choose your aspect ratio? Do you have a favorite? Any additional thoughts or comments?
The short story is: Set the camera to do RAW + JPEG. Set the aspect ratio (“Image Size”) to 1:1 and tell the camera to put RAW files on card 1 and JPEGs on card 2. When you import card 1 to Lightroom, the software applies a 1:1 crop on import. If you go into the crop tool you can see the full 3:2 image and change the crop.
There may be a setting in Lightroom that tells it to apply/not-apply the crop on import.
If anyone wants to try this and runs into trouble, reach out to me and I will see if I can help.
I love square format. So happy for you to figured it out how to photograph in square. The results are great!
Square format does feel like an underutilised medium. I feel like rectangular compositions inherently have a sense of direction to them that a square frame removes.