ILX photographers - portrait or landscape?

portrait. 70 procent of the time. i'm such a cliche. hah

i'm rrrreally tempted to get a 50mm lens

I thought you'd bitten the bullet and got one? It'd be perfect for photographing your kids. I barely use the kit lens anymore.

Portrait, FTW!!!

Mainly because I'm not a proper photographer at all, but rather, just someone who happens to take photos, in order to PAINT PORTRAITS from.

The otherwise pretty good book on composition I have says "Turning [cameras] on their side is just not as comfortable, and most photographers tend to avoid it". Uh.

Landscape

I don't really do pictures of people, but I am finding that the photos I like most lately are ones (of things and places rather than of people) that I've taken oriented as portraits (i.e. tall, not wide). I think the fact that we don't *see* like that (unless we're one-eyed, and not really even then) makes the frame more interesting a lot of the time.

Yes, but we don't *see* either way! Our vision is circular, not landscape or portrait. Either way involves cropping.

Unless you take all yr photos in Panorama - which my dad tends to do.

True, true, but landscape is closer to natural vision...

Not yet. As we've purchased a new PC, I wanted to wait a while. Probably will take the plunge next month or so. :-) There's so many things I want: a GRIP, a proper backpack,... TALENT. Didn't find that in the shop though. roffle.

Landscape

50mm lenses always have been & always will be awesome.

Unfortunately, 50mm lenses are more like 80mm lenses on crop-sensor DSLRs.

Ah yes, we saw this in our course: the mm aren't the same apparently.

Well I got myself a 50mm f2 for a tenner so I shouldna complain too much (assuming it works n all when it arrives).

Landscape for, er, landscape and portrait for, er, portraits. Prob 70-30. Perhaps Lightroom would neatly summarise that info for me.

50mm lens is a 50mm lens on any camera, what changes is the portion of the image captured. A DSLR with a 24x16mm sensor (most of 'em) captures a smaller rectangle of light out of the middle of the image circle than a 36x24mm frame of film. So, to all intents and purposes, you get the same angle of view as if you'd put a 75mm or 80mm lens on a film body.

This is great for telephoto stuff (200mm lens gives you a 320mm FoV), not so good for wide-angle. But it does mean you're capturing right in the sweet spot of the lens and avoiding the loss of sharpness/light transmission that you typically get towards the edges of the image. My 28mm lens vignettes a little on my film body but it's sharp/bright everywhere on my DSLR.

A quick flick through your Flickr suggests you're a liar, Michael!

About what, the distribution of land/port or what I shoot with each? I dunno really, whatever is appropriate. I probably have the numbers wrong. It's kinda obvious from what you're shooting how you should orient the camera and, if it isn't, do both. The ability to crop easily with digital makes this less crucial a choice than I suppose it once was (though, if you used to shoot 6x6 medium format, it wasn't a choice at all).

I take 90% of my pics in landscape. You can probably blame movies and television for that.

Automatic thread bump. This poll is closing tomorrow.

My actual preference is for square, but digital fucked that up pretty well. (Maybe in 10 years there will be affordable medium-format backs actually made in 4.5x4.5 or 6x6....)

35mm - landscape (full-frame 35mm and equivalent is such a horrible ratio though - uncomfortably placed in between square/4x5 and true panoramic ratios)

4x5/8x10 - portrait

PP OTM. It's like, portrait? More like Boretrait. I avoid it at all costs.

landscape. I've found that a well-composed and interesting twisty wide angle picture is the hardest thing to do in photography.

landscape. i like wide pictures. and i like portraits done in landscape.

Portrait 'cause I feel more like a rad hip pro photographer when I hold my camera vertically.

landscape mainly.

Landscape for, er, landscape and portrait for, er, portraits

gnashed and stewed over this for so long but have to agree

Automatic thread bump. This poll's results are now in.