How Many of Your 35mm Photos are Vertical?

How Many of Your 35mm Shots are Vertical?

  • 1-25%

    Votes: 141 52.6%

  • 26-50%

    Votes: 79 29.5%

  • 51-75%

    Votes: 37 13.8%

  • 76-100%

    Votes: 11 4.1%
  • Total voters
    268
I have been shooting about 40% vertical and 60% horizontal images. It doesn't take much extra time; first a horizontal image, followed by a vertical image. It gives me two views of a scene. My most two recent uploads to the gallery show this approach. The beach scene is vertical and horizontal.

I have been told that horizontal prints sell better than vertical prints.
 
SBOOI helps with verticals

SBOOI helps with verticals

I hardly ever shot verticals - maybe less than 10% - until I recently picked up a SBOOI (50mm accessory finder) for an old Leica IId. I tried it out on my M3 with a 50mm summilux and my vertical shot rate jumped to over 50% in the first roll. It is just a real pleasure to look through that finder with both eyes open and the camera body rotated out of the way...

I know this has always been the reason to own an M3 - sans accessory finder - to begin with, but the finder made a big difference in vertical shooting comfort.
 
mudhaus said:
I hardly ever shot verticals - maybe less than 10% - until I recently picked up a SBOOI (50mm accessory finder) for an old Leica IId. I tried it out on my M3 with a 50mm summilux and my vertical shot rate jumped to over 50% in the first roll. It is just a real pleasure to look through that finder with both eyes open and the camera body rotated out of the way...

I know this has always been the reason to own an M3 - sans accessory finder - to begin with, but the finder made a big difference in vertical shooting comfort.
Click to expand...

You've got that Feininger thing going on, huh. ;)
 
Usually I try to fit the interesting details into the frame, so if I have to go vertical to make things fit, then I go vertical.

Often I take both a vertical and horizontal picture of one scene, because I'm not sure which is better.

In general I take more horizontals, simply because the world is organized horizontally.
 
I rarely shoot vertical, so much so that when I want to compose using vertical I do a double take when the rf patch goes the wrong way
 
...most of the shots with the Pen FV. We are slaves to our tools.
 
Don't know the ratio, but I did notice a while ago that most of my favourite landscapes are in `portrait' orientation, while many of my favourite portraits are in `landscape' orientation. Go figure.

And one of the things I want to try-before-I-die is a square-format camera...
 
I think somewhere around 2/3 to 3/4 of my shots are vertical. Even before I got the RF645 (which is oriented vertically).
 
After I got tired of rotating my scanned files, I stopped shooting verticals altogether. I don't really miss them, but I do think the 35mm ratio is a little to wide. I prefer 6x7 for most things.
 
I've been enjoying these comments... I shoot about 50/50; it just comes from what the scene "demands". Sometimes I get it wrong.

In past threads I've been amazed at the strong anti-vertical sentiments expressed. Like that is enough to rule out a 645 format RF camera. Someone bought a Bronica RF645 without adequate research and wondered "what's wrong with my new camera; it only takes verticals?!" I don't recall hearing that about half-frame 35 though.

I have had a half-frame camera pretty much continuously from the early 1960s (Petri Half-7 to start, then Pens), so I've wondered if that has helped keeping me open to vertical orientations. Certainly true I like my 645 Bronicas and Fujis but I don't choose a camera based on its framing direction.
 
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It's the architecture student in me, but it seems like I'm mostly using horizontal orientation, it seems more naturally similar to the eye's field of view. I'd like to try composing in portait orientation for more shots, however.

For some reason this problem doesn't come up on my yashica tlr...
 
increasing vertical shot since I've got a bronica rf645 kit .I have to say that I found the VF very intriguing...found new perspectives....so I bought a 903swc (square format) for other ways of composition....also my rollei tlr has seen some use
 
For me, the subject dictates the camera orientation. If there's a strong vertical element in the frame, I'll tilt the camera 90 degrees. In practice, this pans out as landscapes and casual shots mainly horizontal, portraits mainly vertical..
 
Nick
what you report is true only partly in my hopinion but is indeed intriguing and interesting to think of.
Although I find myself shooting VERTICAL most of the times ( I often take close portraits of people ) I realize two things:
1) Yes, the head is NOT tilted when looking at things around us but is also true that our eyes have a much more horizontal scan of the things than vertical. I think I've read somewhere that both eyes cover a 120° from left to right but for sure they don't do the same vertically (at least without moving the chin)
2) Despite my tendency to shoot vertical, I think it's more related to how close or how surrounded you want a subject in the place it is. If you have to frame a human body AND you want to be close, you MUST frame it vertically, unless you have a very wide angle with you. Conversely, if it's NOT the simple people but the whole scene to be interesting, then the horizontal framing lets your eyes free to scan around it and discover maybe something new or interesting. In general, the same picture taken with different perspective may be very different: try to figure three old men/women framed alone and vertically. One may think those are special or famous men/women. Try to figure them within the same (horizontal) photograph where aside them there's a young rock concert which first was not viewable in the vertical framing. At this point men's value in the image changes a lot. They are no longer important because of them, rather because they maybe show the "curiosity" of the old age toward something young. First it was a "dull" image, now you have a strong contrast which is the real subject of the same image.
I know I'm not yet that expert to shoot as old and famous reporters (pjs) but for sure this is a way I'd really love to. As someone said, "it's easier to shoot with a 90 mm than with a 24/35 mm " Language and what is expressable are really different there.
 
I shoot more photos horizontally than vertically, but find that the number of my shots that have the vertical composition is just about exactly the number that need it.
 
Interesting question - would be nice to mine exif data to quantify. A sampling of 200 'picked' images resulted in 25% vertical.

Flipping the RF camera 90 degrees feels pretty natural, even focusing while in the vertical orientation presents little trouble.

I do like the 8x10 ratio for vertical images.
 
I love portrait orientation; always have. When I learned last year that the Pen F series uses it by default, I said to myself: "It will be mine. Oh yes. It will be mine."

And now it is! And I almost never flip the Pen over to get landscape shots. I let the equipment impose its limitations on me, because life is boring when I don't.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/tapesonthefloor/4637750708/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/tapesonthefloor/4559355230/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/tapesonthefloor/4547653172/

I also love that touchscreen cell phones encourage portrait orientation, as well. The percentage of 3:4 uploads to Flickr has skyrocketed in the past few years because of this alone.
 
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