Digital Cameras And Frame Size

What does the "widescreen mode" on my digital camera do?

A lot of the cameras today have a choice of formats and a lot of people see those numbers and say, "What the heck is this?" Well, we generally start in 35mm photography making a 4x6 print, which is a 3:2 ratio. 35mm's always been 3:2. If you're shooting 4x6, you shoot 3:2. The other option is 4:3, which is standard TV size. So, let's say that would be a 6x8 print or kind of close to a 8x1 ratio -- not really, but close. Today, we also have the ability to shoot in a widescreen or 16x9 ratio -- the same as your HDTV. It's kind of cool because it makes a long, skinny print. Now, the hard part is: Once you shoot that, you can't buy a frame, you can't buy a photo album. But, they're really cool pictures if you like that. Why would you choose to shoot your pictures in 16x9 mode? It's kind of funky for pictures but it's really cool if you're going to show your pictures or to display them on your HDTV. If you want the picture to fill up the HDTV format without losing anything, then choose the 16x9 mode because that's what your HDTV does.

What does my digital camera's "panoramic mode" or "stitch mode" do?

The stitch mode or panoramic mode on your digital camera allows you to attach in the camera more than one picture together. If most of your compact digital cameras take an image that is approximately 4 millimeters in 35 millimeter film, about 50-55 degree field of view... what happens if I want to take a broader field of view? What you do is in the stitch mode the camera tells you to take a picture here, a picture here, a picture here and then combines them to make a long skinny picture in the camera giving you a wide angle picture when you don't have a wide angle camera. It's a pretty cool thing but remember the files are going to be ginormous. They are going to be three times normal. A lot of people have a hard time viewing with the stitch panoramic because they're big files and their computers, their screens, their printers aren't made to handle them.