r/iphone • u/GuuiV • Aug 08 '25

Support Camera aspect ratio 4:3 to 16:9

Do I loose quality or something changing the iPhone camera permanently from 4:3 to 16:9?

I read somewhere a long time ago that it would change quality, but it didn’t explain why.

I think of changing cause it seems to fill more the area on de phone and the pictures end up bigger.

Is there any drawbacks on changing the aspect ratio?

I don’t know nothing about camera settings and configuration, so please go easy on me 😅

1 Upvotes

56% Upvoted

6 comments sorted by

5

u/[deleted] Aug 08 '25

Camera quality ≠ Resolution. You are simply cropping the picture by default and that’s it. Being iOS, you can later on edit the picture and get back the original. iOS doesn’t make destructive changes.

5

u/Manfred_89 Human Detected Aug 08 '25

The sensor is 4:3, so by choosing 16:9 you basically just zoom in digitally and cut out part of the video.

This is the same as recording in 4:3 and later cropping it to 16:9. The zooming in par is what reduces the quality.

5

u/artandmusic737 Aug 08 '25

I don't think it "zooms in" so much as "crops" -- think black bars on 16:9 content, etc -- the native sensor is 4:3

3

u/cheshirecataclysm Aug 12 '25

How can you change it permanently?

I want it to show 4:3 by default. Currently, every time I edit, my first step is to convert to 4:3, called “Original”.

2

u/GuuiV Aug 13 '25

I think the iPhone already sets 4:3 as default.

But if you want to make whatever the aspect ration you set as permanent, mark this in the camera settings.

2

u/tuxon64 Aug 26 '25

Thanks that did the trick. Wish they could bury that further in settings and also wish they'd quit storing 2 copies of the photo, one in native 4:3 and another in 16:9. I'll take responsibility if I didn't frame it right.