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I don't quite see it that way; if social medial platforms are viewed on a computer, the browser takes up all the display area available and fits the content using the whole window, this can be vertical or horizontal or square for that matter. Basically only when the social media is viewed on a mobile device do some apps and websites default to vertical viewing, but that's a limitation of the device basically, and the typical way people default to using it. Originally instagram photos were square, not vertical or horizontal. Some social media platforms assume that a video is shot vertically on a mobile phone, and for a time it wasn't even possible to shoot in horizontal oritentation and have the social media site or app display it correctly; it would always force it to the vertical format. This, however, is incompatible with the way most news media sites present videos, which are horizontal only, mimicking TV. When these news media sites then displayed social media videos or cell phone videos, they would not be able to technically display the video as a vertical, instead they generated blurred sides to the video to turn the vertical video into horizontal. This is all a bunch of nonsense really. Vertical videos make it difficult to show the context and environment in which something is happening. This is why cinema and TV are in landscape orientation: it's better for displaying the content. Photos have been always shot both vertically and horizontally (probably most still horizontally, for the same reason as video), as the continuity can be broken in stills and one can simply flip the camera quickly to vertical and shoot some (portrait) shots that way and return to the landscape orientation to show context; in video, one can not do such flipping without causing problems to the viewer. Books and magazines naturally lend to images in portrait orientation or in some cases, square; for displaying a landscape image in large size one would need to use a double page spread, which of course is commonly done, but it does create some issues if an important part of the image is in the mid section. What's more the verticals in (still) photography were traditionally not anything remotely like 9:16 but 4:5, 3:4, and 2:3. I think seriously social media apps and sites should consider making the vertical format something like 4:5 rather than 9:16 as the latter is just not very good. It's too narrow. Device fitting inside a pocket in an extreme limitation. Clearly, if the main reason vertical videos are requested by advertising clients is people looking at their mobile phones in tube or bus, or wherever, the quality loss from cropping from 16:9 is hardly going to be visible on those tiny displays. Sure, the angle of view is narrrower but it's always going to look awkward having such an extreme aspect ratio in a vertical image. Interesting to hear that there are now high-resolution displays which show video content in public. I can't remember for sure seeing such things myself, though it's possible that I have seen it but didn't pay attention to it. I would be very surprised if those displays are as elongated as 9:16 though. It just doesn't make any visual sense to use such an extreme aspect ratio for vertical content when there is a choice to stick to 4:5 or 2:3. And when those much more suitable aspect ratios are used for the vertical content, the cropping from landscape 16:9 is less extreme and easier to manage.

double post sorry!

When using 16:9 to create vertical videos, the loss of resolution is less of the issue (at least for me) and more the POV, especially as it pertains to action. You lose so much information cropping a 16:9 video into a 9:16 timeline. Open gate allows you to crop off less from the left and right, giving you more perspective. Here is an example, though it's not exactly a perfect one, since one shot is made from a cropped 16:9 frame and the other is from a cell phone that was filming in 9:16, since we were doing quick on site turnaround working with the college that hired us' social media team, but you'd get the same effect using open gate like we usually do. (Sorry this was just the easiest/most recent example I could make.) This is made from a 16:9 frame. Notice how the celebrating wrestler takes up the entire frame, so you can't see many of the attendees? Here is a shot straight from the vertical video. You'd get the same view if you were cropping an open gate image. The second image is preferable, especially when it comes to marketing ourselves to other colleges who might be interested in hiring us, as they can better see the reaction everything is getting from the students in attendance. Plus, it just offers a broader image that better illustrates the vibe and excitement of the audience.

Something interesting I’ve found, my most common deliverables are actually 2:35:1 and 9:16. If you want to deliver both horizontal and vertical and frame for 2:35:1, you end up with some solid headroom for vertical stuff. Decent alternative to open gate IF you are making 2:35:1 content. I get that 2:35:1 is def a personal preference and there’s a lot of work that has to be 16:9, but I’ve found that can work well. I get it though. Open gate is useful.

Dang. It even affects wildlife!

I’ve been thinking about camera needs lately, and I feel like, at the most basic level, everything can be broken down into three main cameras. First is the do-it-all, high-spec work camera. This is the one you use when clients ask for serious specs like 4K/120p or even 8K, or when you just want the best possible image quality. Cameras like the EOS R5 II, Nikon Z8, Sony a1, or Panasonic S1R II fit here. They’re expensive, but they can handle almost anything. Second is what I’d call an “art camera.” This is for personal use, travel, street photography, and just having fun. Ergonomics, size, and character matter more here, but it still needs to shoot good 4K video and work well in low light. Think Fuji X-Pro3, X100 VI, Sigma fp or fp-L, or even the Sony RX1R if video isn’t important. These are the cameras you actually want to carry around. Third is the high-end smartphone camera. Like it or not, this one is essential now and fills a lot of gaps. Of course, three cameras don’t really cover everything for professional work, and budget changes things a lot. You can get very capable work cameras for well under $3k, like the Fuji X-H2S. And if I added a fourth “serious” category, it would be medium format, like the Fuji GFX line or Hasselblad. But in reality… things get out of control fast. I somehow end up with way more “categories,” like high-spec all-rounders, art cameras, retro digicams, CCD cameras, Foveon cameras, IR-modded cameras, impulse buys, cameras I bought twice, cameras bought to flip, broken cameras I’m fixing, run-and-gun small sensor bodies, weird stuff like Mavicas with CD drives, and compact CCD cameras with flash for that Polaroid look. I’m sure I’m forgetting a few. What camera “category” am I missing?

It looks like even the eagle is wondering why you aren't holding the camera vertically.

I think the goal is to record once and have a frame that can be cropped to work with both landscape and portrait edits.

Well, I figured if the viewers online are so non-discriminating and it just needs to be vert-vid to be a reel on our group's page, I'll just do it like this and call it good. I'm lazy, I guess. Also, we ain't trying to maximize views, so no real PR stakes involved here.

It's a bit of a vanilla option when you can get a used S1 for same price which is same spec but a much more premium body, or pay a bit more and get an S9 with PDAF

You can crop whatever but it's much more difficult to shoot & frame vertical video 16:9 than in open gate. And nobody seems to want to turn the camera 90 degrees

The iPhone 17 Pro selfie camera has a square sensor, and when using the default camera app there's a button that swaps between it recording a 9:16 video and a 16:9 video. I don't know if you'd rate it as a "real" camera or not though!

I referenced a video previously from Cam Mackey, which explains it (with real examples and a bit of drama too of course). Based on the video and also from some chats I've had with a friend who runs his own studio specialising in commercial work, the main points are: If you're shooting on location for a brand, there are often lots of things in the background you want to blur out (other brand logos, construction, etc) and backing up or going to a wider lens means the background comes more into focus, which means you need a wider or faster lens to get the same background defocus, potentially meaning you have to sacrifice optical quality (which commercial clients don't like), hire/buy expensive lenses, and potentially have to deal with much heavier setups (bad if you're using them on a gimbal/rails/etc) Vertical deliverables will often need extra vertical space for logos and text to be added, so for commercial clients you need to deliver more height than you normally would include for horizontal video so the images aren't used in the same way In physical shops, you'll often see TVs mounted vertically showing ads, and you can walk right up to them, so if you're cropping into a 16:9 and then that client is viewing the end result on a vertically mounted 4K TV that is almost as tall as an adult, you want your images to have as much resolution / sharpness as you can get because the last thing you want is your client saying "why are our ads all fuzzy compared to our competitors? how much did we spend on this campaign?" You often don't have space to back up, especially considering that lots of corporate and brand content will be shot on location, and corporate especially is often shot in tiny conference rooms etc where you want as much space as possible to pull the subject away from the background for some separation (blur) and also to make lighting easier so there's less spill on the background 90% of clients are expecting both horizontal and vertical deliverables. The divide in this debate is between people shooting for themselves who don't deliver vertically, and people shooting for brands who have to. It's easy to think the only people shooting vertically are influencers but for professionals it's the brands driving the demand (or really it's the people sitting on the train holding their phones vertically and scrolling). If you do back up, your horizontal FOV is now going to include more at the very left/right edges of frame, so either you have to crop the landscape deliverables or you need to make sure the extra FOV is visually suitable for including in the frame.

Honest question, Do you really think people would notice if you center cropped your 4k or higher 16x9 videos to vertical for social media? Like the loss of resolution is that bad when viewed on instagram or facebook after compression? It can help a bit for framing in my experience but it feels like companies are marketing the social media angle as an easy feature that’s already built in and people are drinking the kool aid. My argument for open gate is really the benefits for anamorphic shooting. Cropping for instagram from a 4k 16x9 file has always been fine for me.

I'm a little surprised that the S5 or S5D didn't make a mention. Pick it up for about 550 euros new and get one of those nice Konica lenses- you're ready to go for under 600. Get BlackMagic recorder and you'll even get B-RAW.

Battleships are the future, not drones or any of this new fangled nonsense! And stuff made out of wood.

Much more doable than same ploy at the Mexican border.

An increasing trend in marketing today, is not necessarily being the best or the most reliable or the most anything except being the most popular. The cult of ‘vote for me’ is taking over. The ‘game’ is knowing that but whether any of us choose to play, is up to us, but without question, we are missing out on a share of the pie if we don’t make an attempt to at least sit at the table. This more a situation for the small to medium sized business. Larger corps operate under different rules and for the private individual, it is irrelevant if you use social media or not. Social Media, visually anyway, is vertical. Personally, I despise social media whether it be Facebook or Twitter or TikTok or Whatever, but if as a small business operator, I actively chose to not participate, it would be completely fair for anyone to point their finger at me and state, “your business skills are lacking”. Current status = working on it. Can we get back to talking about cameras again now?

If you're trying to market yourself in 2026 and beyond you need to create content for social media otherwise you're nowhere near maximizing your potential, both in promoting yourself AND generating revenue. Here's an example that's very specific to me: I run a professional wrestling company. We release video of full matches and generate revenue from that. Individual matches can range anywhere from 5 minutes to over 30. These videos might get a couple thousand views in the first two weeks and generate $2-5 in revenue. However, in those same two weeks, we can release a 15 second vertical clip from the same match and get 50,000-200,000 views and generate $20-100 dollars for that short/reel. So we're generating substantially more from those shorts than we are for the full matches. Aside from the direct monetary benefits, every clip we post promotes the company and our upcoming events, which also drives ticket sales. It has also gotten the attention of local sponsors who help pay our expenses in running events and event planners and organizers who hire us to run events at breweries, festivals, fairs, and other community events. We were hired by almost a dozen people this year to run matches at events, generating tens of thousands in revenue for us. Social media and vertical video made that possible. We're a pretty hot local brand because of it. It's a totally different game when you leverage social media. Vertical video, and having a camera that can film in a way that allows you to re-frame your footage for whatever destination you're creating content for, is a huge deal and a game changer. If you're producing long form content and shorts/reels and aren't using a camera with open gate, you're making your life harder than it needs to be AND putting out content that is visually less pleasing for the people watching it vertically.

Then I'd also like to ask, what exactly is the "have to" part of it. Like, y'all can't get paid and/or make a living without vertical videos? I'm not trying to be obtuse in my responses. I don't do things for social media because I really don't want to. Dabbled for a month back during the pandemic and just decided, "Nah, not for me." My career is winding down so I'm not chasing that shit. So ... I legit don't know what's going on for a "have to" to be part of the career calculus.

Programmer and creator of the application is different person not the one behind MotionCam. However he used the same msraw format/container as motioncam. As result workflow is exactly the same and motioncam MacOS or Windows application is needed to extract the DNG files. Yes agree image quality is indeed lovely. Limitations however lead to some frustration for me. I may reconsider and use it from time to time, we'll see.

Epstein hated DJI. Just saying ... 😉

OK, we open a DJI drone shop in one of the Canadian border towns and Americans come across, buy one but only take the controller back with them. As soon as they are over the border they message us and we switch their drone on, put it on the roof of the shop and then they fly the fucker over the border themselves.

Black market import shenanigans anyone? https://petapixel.com/2025/12/23/us-government-bans-new-dji-and-other-foreign-made-drones/

I think Lumix IBIS is the best, along with the original Olympus cameras. It depends on what you use it for but for me it has been the biggest change in how I use a camera over the last 10 years.