Originally posted by Tony Belding I recently spent some time shooting a vintage Ricoh Diacord G with Kodak Ektar 100 -- great old camera, great modern wonder-film. I was very impressed with the output from it. As I was reviewing those square photos in Aperture, and cropping some of them as needed, it got me started thinking about where we've come from and where we're going with digital cameras.
It's not 1960 anymore. The future of photography shouldn't be tied to 35mm film format and pentaprism-based SLR designs. Instead of another "me too" full-frame camera that mimics 135 format, I'd love to see some company think outside the 3:2 aspect ratio box and give us a large, square sensor.
There would be no more concern about turning your camera on its side to frame a shot. That could all be done digitally, cropping the image to whatever final aspect ratio you want, either horizontal or vertical. Composing shots in this way becomes easy if we get rid of the optical viewfinder and go all LCD/EVF -- and that's the future, realistically speaking. The time is fast approaching to send the pentaprism off to its honorable, well-earned retirement.
A square frame makes most efficient use of a given light circle. So, I did some back-of-the-envelope calculations. Your diagonal on 135 format is about 43mm. A 30x30mm sensor would have a 42.4mm diagonal (thank you, Pythagoras), so all the "full frame" lenses, old and new, should cover that image circle neatly. Depending on the crop options you chose, a lot of APS-C glass could be usable, too. Actually, all of it could be usable if you simply put in a compatibility setting; the camera could use the portion of the sensor that the lens's light circle covers, and the electronic viewfinder could scale accordingly.
IMHO, this should be the successor to the DSLR. The K-01 was a sort of awkward step (or stumble, maybe) in roughly the right direction. Put an EVF on it, and swap in a 30mm square sensor, and it could be the beginning of something great.
While I agree with you 100%, I'm afraid you are making to much sense for a lot of people. The current for of DSLR has still one foot in the film-era, even though there's no film in sight.
Originally posted by Tesla The golden ratio is pleasing to the eye, otherwise it would make sense.
Is it? I personally find square photos much more pleasing. Does that mean all cameras should have square format, just to please me? No way! Just as not all cameras should be rectingular just to please someone else.
Actually, I've been cropping my 3:2 pictures to square format occasionally. Only for prints though. Viewing square images on 3:2 displays sucks. Sadly, there are little to no square TV's, monitors or digital photoframes. (OMG, I would love square digital photoframes! Seeing portrait oriented pictures on landscape photoframes hurts my eyes. Square format would solve all that.)
Originally posted by hcarvalhoalves The future of photography isn't tied to 35mm film format just because of inertia, it's tied because 35mm film made sense, which in turn made sense because it's based on the golden-ratio.
No, it definitely is due to inertia. The golden ratio is some sort of vague rule that people invented in the past and claimed that it was most pleasing to THEIR eyes. I'll take their word for it, if they find it pleasing: sure. So, it made sense to them. Strange thing tends to happen though: People get their own pair of eyes when they are born. Together with their own taste, opinions, culture, and what not. What's pleasing to the eyes of some long-dead people, doesn't mean it's pleasing to others right now. Otherwise, we would also still be wearing the same clothes as people were when the golden rule was made up.
There clearly is a market for it, square format is currently a big thing on the online image deposits. It may be a small market, to be ripe for the picking by a brand that likes to occupy niches. Retorical question: Do we know such a brand?
A sensor with a diagonal of 43,27mm (same as FF) but rectangular format (30,6mm x 30,6mm) would have a slightly bigger surface area then an FF sensor whilst still being compatible with existing FF lenses.