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Why aren't my photos taking up the whole screen?

So the 6 is a beautiful phone with a beautiful screen and a great camera. I take a photo and go to look at it and...black bars on both the top and bottom of the screen. Why aren't my photos taking up the whole screen? It's frustrating.

iPhone 6, iOS 8.1.3

Posted on Feb 18, 2015 12:01 PM

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24 replies

May 30, 2017 6:27 AM in response to ChrisChon777cs

Snapchat distorts the image if it was taken with an iPhone. The iPhone screen does not have the same aspect ratio as standard camera aspect ratios, which are 4:3 (35 mm film) and 3:2 (most digital cameras). The iPhone's CCD sensor has a 3:2 aspect ratio. The iPhone screen is 16:9, which is the newest standard for video. But in order to shoot video at 16:9 the iPhone's camera only uses part of the 3:2 CCD sensor, so the resolution of videos on an iPhone is lower than it is for still photos. Video recording uses only 8 of the 12 megapixels that the camera is capable of.


The bottom line is to display a 3:2 still photo on a 16:9 screen requires either stretching the image, or cropping it. Physics rules. The alternative would be to take stills using only 8 MP of the CCD. And the iPhone can do this. Put it in video mode (iPhone 7/7+ only), then take single photos. They will fill the screen, but will be lower resolution than the iPhone is capable of.

Feb 18, 2015 1:34 PM in response to fiaanoor

You don't do it, and if you did you would not like the fact that people's faces were too wide or too long. You can double tap the image to zoom in, but then it will cut off the top and bottom (or left and right for portrait mode). You are dealing with basic laws of physics. The image is a certain height and certain width. The screen is not the same height and width, nor is it in the same proportion as the image.


Camera image proportions: 3264 pixels by 2448 pixels, or 3:4

Screen image proportions: 1334 pixels by 750 pixels, or 3:5.34


So the screen is wider than the image.

Why aren't my photos taking up the whole screen?

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