Here’s a small but significant change on Instagram: In case you default your smartphone camera to 3:4, Instagram will still let you post what you shot… no changes are required.
Instagram’s head, Adam Mosseri, announced on Threads that the app will now support photos in the native 3:4 format, used by most smartphone cameras.
“Instagram now supports 3:4 aspect ratio photos — the format that almost every phone camera defaults to. From now on, if you upload a 3:4 image, it’ll now appear just exactly as you shot it,” said Mosseri.
It doesn’t matter if you post a single image or a carousel; 3:4 photos will now appear exactly the way you captured them, minus cropping or black bars to make your vertical shots fit.
An image from Instagram’s broadcast channel shows the difference. You can already post images with a rectangular aspect ratio of 4:5, but with 3:4, photos won’t get cropped at the ends. Of course, you can still post photos with a square or 4:5 aspect ratio.
Users still want to see more changes, like support for a carousel with mixed aspect ratios.
The change follows Instagram’s move in January to make profile grids feature rectangles instead of squares.