Cropping and aspect ratios
Following on from what RichyS said the review is wrong with respect to cropping.
For most cameras using 16:9 means that the pictures are the same width as the normal mode but the height is reduced. Using this mode would just mean throwing away the top and bottom of the image, something which could be achieved by editting it later.
This one however uses a trick that Panasonic introduced with the LX3. The retangular sensor is bigger than the circular area that the lens projects the image onto, so the corners of the sensor never see anything. This means wasted pixels and so it is a 12MP camera despite having a 14MP sensor, but the user can choose which pair of edges to ignore. Sure 16:9 has less height than the other modes, but unlike most cameras it makes up for that with greater width.
4:3 uses the full height of the sensor but not all of the width, ie 4000*3000. 16:9 uses the full width but not all the height, ie 4352*2448. 3:2 takes a little off each edge, 4128*2752. 1:1 is the sort or crop the review author had in mind when he talked about cropping. Getting an uncropped image complete with missing corners (!) isn't possible.
For comparison the Panasonic G1 at 4:3 has the same 4000*3000. Switch this to 16:9 though and it drops to 4000*2248.
Biting the hand that feeds IT
