the rule of thirds?

jdmwannabee · Nov 21, 2008

so i have been hearing alot about the rule of thirds and i have no idea what it is, so i start searching for it and all i can find are people saying use the rule of thirds, or you didn't use the rule of thirds, or look up the rule of thirds, so i am finally asking for help, can someone please post a link to a thread explaining the rule of thirds! thank you so much! :mrgreen:

manaheim · Nov 21, 2008

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rule_of_thirds

chall33 · Nov 21, 2008

don't worry, up until a few weeks ago i hadn't heard of it either! haha i just googled it though but i'm still trying to 'master' it. here's a link

http://digital-photography-school.com/blog/rule-of-thirds/

jdmwannabee · Nov 21, 2008

Thanks alot guys.

chrisburke · Nov 21, 2008

once you understand what it is, its pretty easy to do.. and its not hard to understand either.. just dont centre your pics..

Jeremy Lim · Nov 22, 2008

Once you learn the rule of thirds, don't constrain yourself to it. While it is a good thing, if you think a shot would look better a different way, don't be afraid to try it out. Same goes with flat horizons. Leaning the angles helps makes things bigger than they actually are at times.

djacobox372 · Nov 22, 2008

Strange... the TS says they were "searching" for the rule of thrids and they still didn't understand... but when I google the "rule of thrids" all I end up with is endless exact descriptions of what it its.

Seriously, learn to search better.

abraxas · Nov 22, 2008

jdmwannabee said:
so i have been hearing alot about the rule of thirds and i have no idea what it is, so i start searching for it and all i can find are people saying use the rule of thirds, or you didn't use the rule of thirds, or look up the rule of thirds, so i am finally asking for help, can someone please post a link to a thread explaining the rule of thirds! thank you so much! :mrgreen:

Read a book on composition.

Davey Jones · Nov 22, 2008

the whole thing revolves around something called 'the golden measrure' or 'the golden mean'.
Troughout nature u can find examples of certain repeating geometry in all things.
it starts with a ratio of 1:1.618.
You can find this all around you, for instance the ratio of the sise of your upper arms
compared to your lower arms, same for legs, the ratio of trunks as they form along the length of a tree etc.

from this ratio nature derives certain forms like spirals like the ones u can see in
tornadoes, spiral galaxies, the spiral forms in the pattern of seeds on a sunflower
etc etc etc.

so the thing is nature is prone to produce things in a certain ratio, and as a result
we are more familiar, more comfortable and ultimatly more attracted to things that
adhere to these ratios and forms.

artists like da vinci took advantage of that and would allways apply this ratio
to the things they painted so as to make them look more natural and appealing.

the rule of 3rds is the photographers way of taking advantage of that.
u cant realy measure and get it down to a science for most shots, but
1:1.618 is roughly a third and thats close enuff to have a strong effect
on a photograph.
also once you frame the shot with the rule of 3rds your going to intuitively
make slight adjustments based on how it looks to you.
and odds are that the better it looks to you, the closer it is to conforming with
'the golden measure'.

if your realy want to get a good understanding of this the thing to google is 'sacred geometry'.

anyways, as stated above it only works on some scenes
wile others simply dont lend themselves to it at all.

ksmattfish · Nov 22, 2008

The rule of thirds is an easy exercise/concept to get beginning photographers to stop composing everything in the center. Visualize a tic-tac-toe pattern evenly spaced over the scene, and compose so that one or more important subject elements are where the tic-tac-toe lines are. Where the lines cross is supposed to be even better.

You can buy focusing screens for your viewfinder that have these lines. Also notice that software such as Lightroom superimposes them when you go to crop.

Don't get caught up in rules of composition though. The rule of thirds and the golden mean are interesting to contemplate, and a helpful exercise when beginning, but they should give way to more intuitive composing. Rules of composition are a lot like astrology IMO. In some instances they work amazingly well, but there are plenty of examples of successful work that completely ignores them. Recent computer analysis of thousands of famous paintings show that the golden ratio/mean/rectangle is no more common than many other arbitrary number patterns.

McKaso · Nov 22, 2008

Like many have already mentioned, it is a "rule" and sometimes rules are meant to be broken. When to break the "rules" comes with time and practice. The rule of thirds is not the only thing to think about when composing a photograph. A good article I refer to can be found at http://www.picturecorrect.com/photographytips/composition.htm

A Google search will bring up many other articles on composing a photograph.