Raw SmithBlog
The XPan look: cropping RAW photos to 65:24 on iPhone, iPad and Mac
The XPan look is a 65:24 panoramic frame, about 2.7 times as wide as it is tall, usually with a filmic grade, a little grain and a soft vignette. You can get it from any RAW file by cropping to 65:24. In Raw Smith, open Crop and tap 65:24; it's one of the built-in ratios on iPhone, iPad and Mac.
Where the XPan came from
Hasselblad introduced the XPan in 1998, made with Fujifilm, which sold the same camera in Japan as the TX-1. It was a 35 mm rangefinder with a trick: it could switch between a normal 24 × 36 mm frame and a 24 × 65 mm panorama on the same roll, using the full height of the film rather than masking it. There were three lenses, 30mm, 45mm and 90mm. The XPan II followed in 2003, and production ended in 2006.
Fewer than 25,000 were made, and the camera has a cult following. Fujifilm has since put a 65:24 option on the aspect ratio dial of its GFX100RF, citing the TX-1 and XPan. For everyone else, it's a crop.
The numbers behind a 65:24 crop
| Your camera | What you keep |
|---|---|
| 3:2 (most interchangeable-lens cameras) | Full width, 55% of the height. 24 MP becomes about 13 MP; 45 MP about 25 MP. |
| 4:3 (Micro Four Thirds, iPhone, GFX) | Full width, 49% of the height. A 48 MP iPhone ProRAW becomes about 24 MP. |
To match the XPan's field of view, think about width. Its 45mm lens covered a 65 mm wide frame, about the horizontal view of a 25mm lens on full frame. The 90mm behaves like a 50mm, and the 30mm like a 17mm. On a full-frame body, shoot with a 24–28mm lens and crop for the classic look, or use a 50mm for the compressed, longer XPan frames.
On an iPhone, the 1× main camera is close to the XPan's 45mm once cropped, and the 0.5× ultra-wide is wider still than its 30mm. Shoot ProRAW for the most room to grade.
Composing for a panorama
A 65:24 frame changes how you see. A few things that help:
- Fill the width, not the height. The frame rewards scenes that run sideways: a shoreline, a street of shopfronts, a row of people waiting.
- Put the subject off-centre. A small figure in the left or right third, with space for them to look into, is the classic XPan composition.
- Use layers. With so little height, a foreground, a middle and a distance give depth that a single plane can't.
- Keep the horizon level. A tilt that's invisible at 3:2 is obvious across a frame this wide. Straighten before you crop.
- Try it upright. A 24:65 vertical suits trees, doorways, waterfalls and tall buildings.
- Leave room when you shoot. If you plan to crop, frame a little looser top and bottom so the crop has somewhere to go.
The grade: making it feel like film
There's no single XPan look; it depended on the film loaded. The usual references are colour negative with soft contrast and warm highlights, slide film with deep colour, or black and white. A starting point in Raw Smith:
- Profile. Start from Neutral for colour, or Monochrome for black and white.
- Light. Lower Contrast a little, pull Highlights down so skies keep their tone, and lift Shadows gently.
- Fade. In Effects, a small amount of Fade lifts the blacks, like a print from negative film.
- Color Grading. A touch of teal in Shadows and warmth in Highs is a common negative-film grade. Keep the saturation low on both wheels.
- Color Mixer. Lower the saturation of greens and blues slightly; film rarely renders them as loudly as a digital sensor.
The built-in Soft Matte and Warm Grain presets are reasonable starting points too. Apply one, then adjust.
Grain and vignette
Both are in the Effects panel.
- Grain. Add a little Grain and raise Grain Size for a coarser, faster-film feel. Judge it at 100% and at the size you'll share; grain that looks right zoomed in can vanish on a phone.
- Vignette. Many panoramic film frames darken towards the edges. Use Vignette to darken the corners a little, raise Feather so it fades smoothly, and leave Roundness at 0 so it follows the long frame as an ellipse. Lower Roundness makes it squarer, higher makes it a circle in the middle.
Raw Smith applies the vignette to the cropped frame, so set the crop before the vignette.
How to crop to 65:24 in Raw Smith
- Open the photo and choose the Crop tab (R with a keyboard).
- Straighten first: drag the dial, or tap AUTO to level the horizon.
- Tap 65:24, labelled XPan panorama. Tap it again to turn it upright, to 24:65.
- Drag inside the crop to place it, or drag a handle to make it smaller. The ratio stays locked.
- Choose another tab when you're done. The crop can be changed or reset any time.
The crop guide covers the rest of the tab, including perspective.
Saving it as a preset
To reuse the grade, choose Save Preset… in the Presets tab and keep Profile, Light, Color and Effects on. You can also turn on Crop, which stores the crop as a box on the frame. That works for photos with the same shape and orientation, such as a set from one camera held level, but for a mix of shapes it's quicker to apply the grade by preset and tap 65:24 on each photo.
What about other apps?
Lightroom on the desktop lets you enter a custom ratio such as 65 × 24. Lightroom mobile has fixed ratios and freeform but no custom entry; an Adobe community request for one dates from 2017, with users asking specifically for 65:24. Adobe marks it In Development. Until it ships, a freeform drag gets close, but not exact.
How Raw Smith fits
Raw Smith has 65:24 as a built-in crop ratio on iPhone, iPad and Mac, along with the grain, vignette, fade and colour grading the look needs, all rendered from the RAW. With iCloud sync, you can crop on the phone and finish the grade on a bigger screen. It doesn't simulate specific film stocks, and there's no custom ratio entry beyond the built-in list and Freeform. It's a free download with a free tier and a 14-day trial; Pro is a one-time purchase or a yearly plan. Try it in the public beta on TestFlight.
Questions
What aspect ratio is XPan?
65:24, about 2.7:1. The Hasselblad XPan exposed a 24 × 65 mm frame on ordinary 35 mm film, almost twice as wide as a normal 24 × 36 mm frame.
How do I crop to 65:24 in Lightroom mobile?
Lightroom mobile has a set of fixed ratios and freeform, but no field to type a custom ratio, according to a long-running Adobe community request. You can drag a freeform crop to roughly 65:24, or use an editor with a 65:24 preset.
How many megapixels do I keep when I crop a 3:2 photo to 65:24?
About 55%. The full width stays and the height drops to 55% of the frame, so a 24-megapixel photo becomes about 13 megapixels and a 45-megapixel photo about 25.
Which focal length gives the XPan 45mm look on a full-frame camera?
Roughly 25mm, then crop to 65:24. The XPan's 45mm lens covered a 65 mm wide frame, which matches the horizontal view of about a 25mm lens on 36 mm wide full frame.
Can I make a portrait 24:65 crop?
Yes. In Raw Smith, tap the selected 65:24 ratio again and the crop turns upright, to 24:65.