Shooting vertically...more resolution in post?

[Jeremy M Lundborg]

I am shooting a short project on R1 and 5D, framing for 1:1 to match 4x4 print photography that will be shown in the same timeline.

For some reason I have it in my head that shooting vertically, the camera mounted at 90degrees, will give me more resolution in post. At the end of the day the image will simply have a center crop according to the masked LCDs. Either it's shot horizontal at we crop to 1080x1080, or it is shot vertically and has to be rotated and cropped to 1080x1080.

It doesn't seem like it would be that much of a difference, especially if it is not Anamorphic.

Please tell me i'm crazy or why I'm not. I don't know where I got that idea from!

[MichaelP]

A lot of the Alice in Wonderland characters were shot HD in portrait mode against green screen to allow for more resolution on people (and objects) that were vertical versus horizontal when compositing. Same theory would apply to any camera format.

Michael

[William Robinette]

If you're cropping to a square your shortest resolution side is your lowest common denominator, doesn't matter if it is portrait or vertical. Shooting characters for green screen comping is a different scenario.

[David Mullen ASC]

The reason people sometimes shoot vertically is for vertical objects against green screen that will be extracted and composited to maximize the amount of pixel information devoted to the subject.

But in the case of a square frame it doesn't matter because you are limited to whichever is the shorter dimension anyway, in most cases, the height of the sensor, so you don't gain anything by turning the camera sideways.

[Jeremy M Lundborg]

Thanks for responses, everyone. Much appreciated. I knew I wasn't totally crazy, and it makes perfect sense in terms of the square crop.

[paulherrin]

pick your alignment based on which axis you want leeway for reframing. that will depend on what you are shooting and if/how it is moving.

[Marc Wielage]

A lot of the Alice in Wonderland characters were shot HD in portrait mode against green screen to allow for more resolution on people (and objects) that were vertical versus horizontal when compositing.

I worked on a lot of Alice in Wonderland in post at Technicolor/Hollywood, and can recall seeing very few portrait-mode shots. 99.9% of it was shot conventionally, just with the floor on the bottom and partial sets built. I think there were more green screen in this movie than any other I've ever seen (except possibly Sin City), and the compositing work that Sony Pictures Imageworks did was phenomenally good.