Aspect ratio

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Aspect ratios and framing

An aspect ratio is the frame's width divided by its height. It decides what fits beside your subject, how much sky or ground you include, and how the picture sits on the screen it ends up on.

• Square and portrait

  1:1 and 4:5 come from social feeds; 9:16 is full-screen vertical video for phones. They favour a single subject and stacked, vertical compositions.

• 4:3 and Academy

  Early cinema and analogue TV used near-square frames: 1.33:1, then the Academy ratio of 1.37:1. Directors still choose them for intimacy and a period feel.

• IMAX

  IMAX film is 1.43:1, a tall frame that fills a huge screen top to bottom so the picture surrounds you.

• 16:9 and 1.85

  16:9 (1.78:1) is the shape of nearly every TV and monitor. 1.85:1 is the standard "flat" widescreen cinema ratio, just slightly wider.

• 2.00 and 2.39

  2:1 is popular in streaming. 2.39:1, often called scope, is the classic anamorphic widescreen for epics and landscapes, with room for several people across the frame.

• 2.76

  An extra-wide 70mm anamorphic format, revived for a handful of modern epics. Very wide, very cinematic and hard to fill.

• Letterbox and pillarbox

  When a picture is wider than the screen it gets black bars above and below (letterbox); when it's narrower it gets bars at the sides (pillarbox).

• Rule of thirds

  Two lines each way split the frame into nine parts. Placing horizons on a line and subjects on an intersection usually feels more balanced than dead centre.

• Golden ratio and spiral

  The golden ratio (about 1:1.618) puts its lines a little closer to the centre than thirds. The spiral is a guide for leading the eye in a curve toward a focal point.

• Safe areas

  Some screens crop the edges. Broadcast keeps action inside the outer box (90%) and text inside the inner box (80%) so nothing important gets cut off.