Cinemascope

I made the picture above on our fog chasing tour, last weekend. Clearly, it is not in cinemascope format, although it’s pretty wide. This is 1.78:1, that is, it is almost twice as wide as it is high. You recognise it as the 16:9 format being used in wide screen television sets. It’s pretty wide, but cinemascope is 2.35:1, almost two and a half times wider than it is high, massive. I only wish I had a blog more suitable for these pictures, whereas the current maximum width of 585 px doesn’t work that well…

Anyway, I love really wide pictures and perspectives that you can’t take it in by the usual way you watch an image. Imagine the feeling you’re sitting on the edge of a steep mountain and watching thee landscape spreading out some hundred metres below your feet. To take in the vast view, you have to pan over the landscape and focus on individual details. It’s a physical experience, too, you really have to turn your head to take it all in. That’s cinémascope to me, not that much absolute dimensions and aspect ratios as the look and feel.

I’d like to compose more of these wide images already at capture time and I have been thinking of how to either include frame lines in the viewfinder, or masking out a bit of it. The latter is probably easier than the former, although both requires nerves of steel when opening up the camera body to access to the ground glass… Sounds like a cool project, doesn’t it? Frame lines would be preferred when I also like to make regular 4:3 ratio images. There is actually a company that has a similar offering to what I want to achieve, and they say you can’t do this yourself…

Well, well, pondering a bit more on this wont hurt. Either the way, I will be busier than ever in a week, so whatever I come up with will not be anything else than a thought the following two months.