It is fascinating: the medium format sector has been moving away from square 6x6 format towards oblong shapes (mostly 645, a bit of 6x7) since well before the digital transition, the smaller (35mm etc.) and larger (view camera) formats have never bothered with square, the rapid increase of sensor cost with sensor size has greatly accelerated the move away from 6x6 ... and yet in the forums there seems to be a great number of posters who believe that this has all been a horrible stupid mistake, and that the future is (or should be) a return to square formats.
I wouldn't ever ask for a square sensor but I guess the point is people are tired of rotating cameras and waist level finders would work for vertical/square pics (since you wouldn't need to turn the camera). Instead of a square sensor a 6x7 sensor for the RZ67 would be really nice (including the rotating mount).
When you find the entire industry and market place going in what you consider to be the wrong direction, you should always ask why the trend is what it is, and be open to an answer that involved the camera makers knowing something that you do not, rather than "collective stupidity" or "a vast conspiracy".
Ok, now this is not the best argument. Check out the american car manufacturers. Big trucks, gasguzzlers, etc. All almost chapter11.
Usually manufacturers just give customers what they can get away with not what would be best for them. Oh yeah, and make max possible profits.
A few possible ingredients, beyond the very substantial increase in sensor cost:
- to avoid rotating by use of a square format of equal maximum side length requires a VF assembly including mirror enlarged to the 56x56mm square size, and so a deeper, heavier, slower moving mirror with even more mirror slap to deal with.
- that requires a lens mount which sits further from the focal plane to accommodate the deeper mirror box, and lenses whose rear elements stay further from the focal plane, so a complete new set of lenses in place of current 645 lens systems.
I'm not sure that is accurate but I've read sensor yields and prices both improved a lot. And I think to recall that Dalsa assembled a sensor from several subpieces. How much more would a 6x7 sensor cost than a 6x45? A couple thousand USD? People would probably pay a 10k $ premium over the P65+ to get a P100+ (with 25 Megapixel Sensor+ mode).
The questions are probably not prices (Red.com is intending to deliver a DSMC 6x17cm sensor for 53k USD btw) but the requirement for a different body, possibly different electronics and the risk of serving a niche not big enough. Phase has no reason for a 6x6 since they only have 645 and 67 bodies, Hassy's current H bodies only supports 6x45 so a complete nogo too.
But it sure could be done. The Leaf AFI had a 6x6 box. My Mamiya RZ67 Pro2 has less mirror slap than a Hassy H1 and better focussig too.
Paul Claesson of Hasselblad USA was not entirely joking when he said "Would you prefer a smaller sensor or a much larger camera?"
Well... Paul was maybe a bit conservative with his thoughts on this. Why not drop the mirror box altogether? An ARCA Swiss camera is not much of a camera but at the same time plenty of camera. With a HDMI 1080p output (liveview) from the back you wouldn't even need autofocus, mirrorbox, optical viewfinder, mechanical shutter, etc anymore. And the camera would be much smaller, lighter and more reliable.
And let's be honest... less and less fashion and people shooters will get backs when pixel counts are around 50-60 or more Megapixels just because it's too impractical to massage the HUGE files and store them. Everything much larger than 30 Megapixels needs a crazy ass computer and computing times go up like crazy. Seems like architecture, landscape, product, etc shooters will be the remaining MFDB user base at some point. All served very well with live-view when using tilt-shift.