When to (or not to) turn the camera on its side to shoot a picture

vettech

My husband is telling me that I don't need to turn my camera on its side for anything but portrait type pictures. I told him that I do this so I can get a great close up shot of something without having the top or bottom chopped off (I think he gets tired of having to flip them on the computer). I think it's more a matter of personal preference, but if I'm taking anything away from my pictures by flipping my camera, then tell me please!

I am open to ideas, since I'm new to this. I love, love, love my Nikon D5100!
Thanks for any and all opinions!

bruto

My own opinion is that this is entirely a matter of preference for what format you want your picture in and what you want to include or exclude. Those used to shooting slides will always try to frame the picture correctly in the camera rather than counting on cropping later. Make sure you set the image rotation option in the camera's menu, or all your images will be presumed to be in landscape mode. Some software still messes up but most will read a vertical picture correctly if the camera specifies it as portrait mode.

For pictures that stubbornly refuse to stay vertical, Faststone Image Viewer has a function that rewrites the orientation info on a JPG file in a way that seems to persist even in programs that often get it wrong.

A lot of the issue has to do with taste or the way you see things. My wife and I have been taking pictures together for a long time. We both have 35mm cameras, and now DX digitals. We stand in the same places, and almost always get completely different pictures. While I'm seeing a wide horizontal composition, she's seeing a narrow vertical one. Either works if you get it right. Your husband should get used to the idea that when two people see things differently it does not mean that one of them is wrong.