Photography system with large length to width picture format ratio

Abstract

The viewfinder of a conventional 35-mm. camera has a horizontal portion masked off by an appropriate insert so that the scene viewed has a length to width ratio greater than 2.0 to 1 and preferably about 3 to 1. This wide field of view corresponds to wide screen pictures such as cinemascope. Pictures are taken using the masked viewfinder and during printing of the film, the film gate in an enlarger is correspondingly masked or provided with an aperture of the same ratio as that of the unmasked portion in the viewfinder. Printing paper is provided with a proportional ratio so that the entire printing paper is used in printing the picture from the film. Pictures can thus be returned to the photographer which are of a substantially larger length to width ratio than conventional pictures, all to the end that elongated bodies such as ships or trains can be readily photographed holding the camera in a horizontal position, or, alternatively, tall buildings can be accommodated by holding the camera in a rotated 90.degree. position.

Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.