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Author Topic: Square Sensor  (Read 13149 times)

EinstStein

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Square Sensor
« Reply #20 on: February 15, 2010, 12:53:56 pm »

It's a good observation that the digital sensor based camera is far less flexible than the film based camera when coming to the frame format.
On the paper size dictating, I think it's less a concern. Paper size is less dictating in the digital era. If you ignore the labor cost, the percentage of the cost per print is actually decreasing.
Besides, more often than before, there is no print at all but only the electronic display. So cropping the paper is not that much of a pain.

Oh yes, I forgot the format of the electronic frame. That needs to be square. ... , Well, what can I say, believe me, that's not on Canon, Nikon, Mamiya, or Fuji's concern list.
« Last Edit: February 15, 2010, 12:54:46 pm by EinstStein »
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EinstStein

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Square Sensor
« Reply #21 on: February 15, 2010, 01:04:00 pm »

As of today, the sensor cost is still dominating the digital camera's cost. But I just attend the ISSCC/2010 at San Francisco, Sony gave one of the key note speech on the digital sensor.
Sony pointed out that the sensor's cost is decreasing that soon it will make sense to put a pair of sensors for 3D imaging, along with the global shuttering etc.
Guess what would be the frame format for 3D? Want to bet it'd be square?

Well it's good to dream for that, but I want it now.

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BJL

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« Reply #22 on: February 15, 2010, 04:36:04 pm »

Quote from: EinstStein
As of today, the sensor cost is still dominating the digital camera's cost. But I just attend the ISSCC/2010 at San Francisco, Sony gave one of the key note speech on the digital sensor.
Sony pointed out that the sensor's cost is decreasing that soon it will make sense to put a pair of sensors for 3D imaging, along with the global shuttering etc.
What sensor size was the Sony rep. talking about? Almost certainly not the 56x56mm of square MF! Probably instead consumer digicams with 1/2.3" or smaller sensors (as in over 90% of digital cameras), which I can believe are quite cheap now, being only about one ninth the area of the smallest DSLR sensors (4/3") and so probably under one tenth the cost, helped by greater economies of scale.

Quote from: EinstStein
Guess what would be the frame format for 3D? Want to bet it'd be square?
I'd bet it would be the same shape as the photographic industry has almost universally adopted so far, since 3D should not change shape desires much. So from 4:3 to 3:2 if primarily for stills, about 16:9 to 2:1 if primarily for motion, and maybe a middle ground of about 3:2 if for a balance of still and motion imaging.
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Gigi

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« Reply #23 on: March 01, 2010, 09:35:44 am »

'Scuse me for the strong reply - but much of this thread is off topic. A guy asks for a square format, and he's told he's off base. Naturally, he's asking to go upstream. I think he knows that.

Yes, of course, the market has drifted (run at full sprint?) to the rectangular format - somewhere between 4:5, 3:4, 2:3 (notice the obvious lack of consensus?). And like the original poster, I like a square sensor. Leaving cropping aside, for me the discipline of shooting square is a cry to compose the photos with a different set of compositional rules than rectangular. Just to stir up the pot, I'd offer that 4:5 has similar compositional emphasis (still well proportioned).

For some of us, an obvious minority, we would welcome the square sensor. Cropping a rectangular doesn't make a good bit of sense. Gee, wouldn't it be good to have a Phase 40+ back, square sensor, order the mounting you want.....

Geoff

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Geoff

EricWHiss

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Square Sensor
« Reply #24 on: March 01, 2010, 01:11:03 pm »

IMHO   Once you get used to shooting square, you really can't go back to 3::2
3::4 is a nice compromise though.   I also like the 6::7 and 4::5 medium formats.
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EinstStein

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Square Sensor
« Reply #25 on: March 04, 2010, 01:13:19 am »

I happen to feel the same. If ever shows up any square format digital camera, it should have a big warning:
     "Warning, may cause addiction ..."

The 6x7 format once was called "the ideal format". I now kind of agree -- it's the best compromise between square and 3x2.
3X2 is awful, 4x3 slightly better, 5x4 more better, 6x7 ideally compromised, but square is perfect.  

Quote from: EricWHiss
IMHO   Once you get used to shooting square, you really can't go back to 3::2
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BJL

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Square Sensor
« Reply #26 on: March 04, 2010, 12:02:25 pm »

Quote from: EinstStein
The 6x7 format once was called "the ideal format". I now kind of agree -- it's the best compromise between square and 3x2.
3X2 is awful, 4x3 slightly better, 5x4 more better, 6x7 ideally compromised, but square is perfect.
Except that the so-called 6x7 format is actually 56x70mm, the same 5:4 shape as 5x4 and 10x8, not a true 7:6.

And except the fact that the overwhelming majority of photographers show different preferences than you, and choose shapes between 5:4 and 3:2 for most prints, even photographers who do their own cropping and printing and so have control over prints shapes. For example, even when Ansel Adams printed from negatives with 5:4 shape, his cropping went in the wider direction (towards 4:3 etc.) more often that in the squarer direction.

My counting of shapes for published photographic prints and also paintings and drawings over many centuries shows a clear consistent domination by shapes from 5:4 to 3:2, with the mode somewhere between those extremes, around 4:3 to 7:5. The same pattern is seen by the dominant shapes offered for sensors, sheet film, photographic printing paper, drawing paper, and canvases in art supply stores.

So enjoy your personal enthusiasm for square images (there are some great ones, and I have one on my wall that I paid quite a lot for) but please acknowledge the reality that this is far from the most common preference, even amongst serious photographers and other visual artists.
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adam_j

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« Reply #27 on: March 10, 2010, 05:46:03 pm »

Some people have said here already but the m4/3 systems (Olympus at the very least) can change the format they record in.  You can change from 4x3, 16x9, 6x6 and a few others I can't remember off the top of my head.  And since it's all done through the EVF or rear LCD you get the benefit of seeing what your going to take without the use of guides.  When you switch to 6x6 you do loose some DPI as the camera just discards those pixels in favor of your format.  
Adam

aaykay

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« Reply #28 on: March 16, 2010, 08:10:16 pm »

Quote from: adam_j
Some people have said here already but the m4/3 systems (Olympus at the very least) can change the format they record in.  You can change from 4x3, 16x9, 6x6 and a few others I can't remember off the top of my head.  And since it's all done through the EVF or rear LCD you get the benefit of seeing what your going to take without the use of guides.  When you switch to 6x6 you do loose some DPI as the camera just discards those pixels in favor of your format.  
Adam

Yeah, some of these m4/3 models that allow multi-format shooting, uses an over-sized sensor and then crop within it, to get the format they want (and maintain the crop factor of 2x).  Unfortunately, they are wasting sensor pixels (of the oversized sensor) regardless of the format used for shooting, since the output are just crops within the same over-sized sensor.
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Ray

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« Reply #29 on: March 16, 2010, 10:12:18 pm »

If the mirror could be removed without any serious disadvantages to creative ease, I'd be in favour of a square format. One would have to rely upon an electronic viewfinder in place of the optical, but these have improved considerably over the years.

One of the main attractions of the Canon 50D was its 920,000 pixel LCD LiveView screen. If I could press my eye to an optical viewfider which produced a 1mp image, I think that might be sufficient (but I'm not sure, of course).

The idea behind the square sensor is simply a more efficient utilisation of the physical camera shape and size. Having dispensed with the mirror, a 5D2 instead of being a 21mp camera with a 3:2 aspect ratio, becomes a 32.5mp camera with a square aspect ratio, but retains the option of the 21mp 3:2 aspect ratio whenever that's considered appropriate.

In fact, one could take this a step further and have a dedicated button on the camera (like Michael's MLU button    ), but this button, with each press, would change aspect ratio from 16:9 to 3:2 to 4:3 to 5:4 to 1:1 etc.

With such a camera, even the very common 4:3 aspect ratio image would have a greater pixel count than 21mp.

Apart from the disavantages of not having a true optical viewfinder, the only other concerns I can think of are the increased vignetting in the extreme corners of a square format using current Canon lenses, since such corners would intrude to a greater extent into the lens image circle, and the increased demands on battery life.
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Doug Peterson

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« Reply #30 on: March 16, 2010, 11:17:39 pm »

Any Phase One back (all but one are 4:3 rectangles) can be had a great price now and mounted vertically or horizontally on either a Mamiya RZ or a Hassy 500 series body. The mask for the ground glass includes both the vertical and horizontal crops. Depending on how often you switch between horizontal and vertical this may be just as good as a square sensor you intend to crop to 4:3 in one or the other direction.

tesfoto

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« Reply #31 on: May 14, 2010, 05:35:07 pm »

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