The dumb options thread

[Circlotron]

We’ve all bought something at one time or another that had a set of operating options, and sooner or later we find that a really useful or obvious operating mode had been left out or doesn’t work in combination with something else. Case in point - I have a Sony ILCE-3500 DSLR and you can use it to take a panoramic picture by moving it across the field of view similar to how you do it with a smartphone. The thing is, you can only do it in landscape mode!!! The height is so restricted! If you could also do it in portrait mode you would have so much more height and still as much width as you wanted... Unbelievable.

There must be many more things like this out there.

[GlennSprigg]

I'm not sure how similar the 'Sony ILCE-3500 DSLR' is, with the 'Sony ILCE-3500J DSLR', but the
'Sony ILCE-3500J DSLR' mentioned on...
   https://www.sony.com.au/electronics/support/e-mount-body-ilce3000-series/ilce-3500j/specifications
says that in 'Sweep Panorama' mode, the pixels can be either...

    Image Size (pixels), Sweep Panorama
      Wide: Horizontal 12,416 x 1,856 (23M),
      Vertical 5,536 x 2,160 (12M)
      Standard: Horizontal 8,192 x 1,856 (15M),
      Vertical 3,872 x 2,160 (8.4M)

[darrellg]

If you want more height, use a different lens. Or stitch it together in post production https://helpx.adobe.com/photoshop/using/create-panoramic-images-photomerge.html.

[Circlotron]

in 'Sweep Panorama' mode, the pixels can be either...

    Image Size (pixels), Sweep Panorama
      Wide: Horizontal 12,416 x 1,856 (23M),
      Vertical 5,536 x 2,160 (12M)
      Standard: Horizontal 8,192 x 1,856 (15M),
      Vertical 3,872 x 2,160 (8.4M)

Well, so it does...
Better rename this to "The dumb user thread". 
But even so, in normal landscape mode the pic can be as big as 5456 wide × 3632 high.
So why in wide panorama mode can't it be 5456 high instead of only 2160 ?
Grrrr!

[glarsson]

Unless the user holds the camera absolutely square with the sweep and the sweep follows a perfect line, the software has to have margins on top and bottom to be able to stitch the individual images together. The designers either have to reduce the height to a fixed value so a reasonable large proportion of users will be able to take panoramas, or reduce it from case to case giving panoramas with varying dimensions.

[GlennSprigg]

What 'glarsson' said makes sense.
As a point of interest, I don't know what the latest 'modern' Cameras are like, but I remember
that for years, 'So-Called' WIDE-ratio views were a bit of a misnomer !!  The cameras only had
so many horizontal/vertical detector cells, (pixels), so for 'wide' mode, they simply chopped off
the top & bottom of the picture!, so you never got the real 'height' in pixels.
Also, the majority had more of a 'digital' zoom, than an actual 'lens' zoom. 

[GlennSprigg]

P.S...

I hate it when people take videos with their 'SmartPhones', (Youtube riddled with it),
while holding their Phone VERTICAL !!   
All you see is that silly vertical band with no side detail. Grrr...   

[Rerouter]

The settings button on almost all phone screen keyboards always gets me, Every single device I have interacted with has the button shoved next to highly used buttons, meaning nearly every day i open that settings menu 2-3 times, when in reality, I would be unlikely to use it more than once per year.

[MarkF]

P.S...

I hate it when people take videos with their 'SmartPhones', (Youtube riddled with it),
while holding their Phone VERTICAL !!   
All you see is that silly vertical band with no side detail. Grrr...   

+10
The evening news is riddled with them too. Plus they put an enlarged copy as the background. So distracting.
 
Maybe we can get the 'smart phone' manufactures to enforce the 16x9 ratio for videos and putting black bars on the top and bottom of the screen while the phone is vertical. Breaking the habit. 

[Terry01]

I don't know enough about photography to post a comment....

Very funny all the same 

[GlennSprigg]

I don't know enough about photography to post a comment....
Very funny all the same 

Ha!!!, your tag-line of...
"Sparks and Smoke means i'm nearly there! "   made me laugh !   

In Scotland one needs another Camera setting, "Image Stabilization" when Cold & Shaking! 
Actually, when I was in Edinburgh years ago, it was 25-deg-C !!  Must have been a heat wave...

[Terry01]

I don't know enough about photography to post a comment....
Very funny all the same 

Ha!!!, your tag-line of...
"Sparks and Smoke means i'm nearly there! "   made me laugh !   

In Scotland one needs another Camera setting, "Image Stabilization" when Cold & Shaking! 
Actually, when I was in Edinburgh years ago, it was 25-deg-C !!  Must have been a heat wave...

Glad you got a wee chuckle! 

We do get some rotten weather in Scotland! Today for instance is a stinker. It's been dark ans the drizzel has never let up all day! Something else that may come in handy would be "windscreen wipers" 

[rsjsouza]

P.S...

I hate it when people take videos with their 'SmartPhones', (Youtube riddled with it),
while holding their Phone VERTICAL !!   
All you see is that silly vertical band with no side detail. Grrr...   

+10
The evening news is riddled with them too. Plus they put an enlarged copy as the background. So distracting.
 
Maybe we can get the 'smart phone' manufactures to enforce the 16x9 ratio for videos and putting black bars on the top and bottom of the screen while the phone is vertical. Breaking the habit. 

This comes to mind...
https://youtu.be/Bt9zSfinwFA