How to force Canon DSLR to use portrait or landscape

[BrendanC]

I've recently realised why my DSLR sometimes does portrait and sometimes landscape.

It's nothing to do with how I attach it to the scope. It's to do with whether the scope is pointing more upright or more horizontal. It switches automatically because of, from what I've read, sensors that tell it when to do portrait or landscape, depending on which way it's facing. Or something.

It's really irritating. I've just noticed it's even switched from one to the other midway through a shooting session. This will probably affect my framing and stacking, and cause all my bright stars to have weirdly spaced, multiple diffraction spikes.

One fix is to rotate the whole OTA so that the DSLR is always pointing up. I'd rather not do this because I'd like to keep the option of using the eyepiece, which would be rotated to a weird angle. Also it will be harder to access the camera for battery changes etc.

A much better fix would be simply to tell the darned thing always to shoot in landscape, or always to shoot in portrait. But I cannot seem to find any way to do this.

There are 'landscape' and 'portrait' modes, but they also enhance the image in strange ways that I don't want them enhancing.

Or do I need to create a custom mode? 

Does anyone have a fix for this? It's a Canon EOS1000D but I expect this issue (and, hopefully, fix) applies to similar models.

[happy-kat]

There is a menu option to auto rotate. Turn it off if you want to dictate orientation used by how you position the camera

[Ouroboros]

It’s in the settings menu with a spanner on it and it’s on Page 112 of the manual. 

[BrendanC]

@happy-kat I'm sure I've tried that but I'll take another look tonight, thanks.

@Ouroboros Doesn't that just affect how the image is displayed, not the actual landscape/portrait orientation of the image itself? No matter, I'll try that too! Again, thanks for the suggestion.

[Ouroboros]

@BrendanC  Yes, I think it’s just a tag saying how the picture should be displayed both on your camera and when you transfer it to your computer. I know that DSS and Pixinsight don’t care. They process and display them in landscape regardless.

I use my Canon 450D for daytime photography too and annoyingly I often forget to turn that landscape/portrait thingy back on again.  

For some reason I have an idea that rotating images (JPEG presumably) isn’t lossless. I only believe that because Irvanview has a rotate image losslessly feature, which implies rotation isn’t normally lossless. Maybe someone more knowledgable can put me straight on this one.  Not that astro images are normally JPEGs, but terrestrial ones often are. 

Edited March 3, 2020 by Ouroboros

[BrendanC]

So if it's just a tag, does that mean that my camera could still take something in portrait, even if I want it in landscape, but it would then just be displayed landscape?

I can't get my head around all this. I'll just try it and see. If I really do have to rotate the OTA so the camera reliably takes shots in landscape, I guess I'll just have to do that.

[Ouroboros]

All I know is that when I switch off auto-rotate then what appears on the camera and what appears on my laptop (when I transfer) is always landscape.

Edited March 3, 2020 by Ouroboros

[tooth_dr]

The only thing that’s changed is how it’s displayed on your screen/PC.  Nothing else is different.  As @happy-kat says turn off autorotate and problem solved.

It won’t cause weird multiple diffraction spikes.  My 40d did this and turning off auto rotate cured the display issues. 

[celestron8g8]

When your camera is attached to your computer you should also be able to choose how you want it to appear on the computer . It’s done from the computer , not the camera itself . 

[BrendanC]

Just checked and I had that option switched on, both for camera and PC, so now I've switched it off and let's see if it works.

Thanks!

[basingset]

You don't have to use portrait mode on your camera... For example, my camera doesn't have such a mode, and it's not a problem for me at all. I'm already used to editing and processing photos manually. In addition, there are now quite a few different Photoshop and photo editors, which can be used to put any mode, whether it is a portrait or any other. It is much more challenging to process photos using retouching... When I decided to take pictures of my newborn baby, I didn't do it myself. And because I wanted the pictures to be high quality and simple, I signed up for a photoshoot with a photographer from wanderlustportraits.com. He surprised me with his work.

Edited January 21, 2022 by basingset

[Swillis]

On 03/03/2020 at 16:14, Ouroboros said:

For some reason I have an idea that rotating images (JPEG presumably) isn’t lossless

Rotating by multiples of 90deg should be fine and not result in loss (pixels are square after all). Anything other than 90 and the software has to make a guess at what the pixel value should be.  Presumably stacking software has to do this to some extent when rotating images?

Happy to be corrected if I'm wrong, this is based on experience of a piece of equipment at work. 

[Ouroboros]

One thing I love about SGL is how someone can respond to something you wrote ages ago ….   

[Swillis]

Haha, hadn't noticed the original post date 🤣