Originally posted by Dana G I'm taking this opportunity to refresh my aspect ratio rant.
< RANT >
When the original 35mm frame was designed, it simply put two movie frames together. The problem was that the common print sizes at the time (8x10/11x14/16x20 and so on, at least in the States) meant you needed to chop off the ends of your images to sell a portrait or fill a standard magazine page.
Medium format cameras were designed to fit the print sizes more easily, wasting less image.
When the one-hour photo joints came on line, they started offering 4x6 instead of 4x5 for snapshots, like they used to.
Now we have an entire generation of people who can't conceive of any other shape for a sensor. Why?? If I make an A3 print from my DSLR, I need to chop off the ends.
With 35mm I ignored the edges of the frame in a lot of cases - they didn't make it into the final product. Now you can buy focusing screens with lines scored for 8x10 or 5x7, so you know what to ignore if you're using standard paper sizes. Because I tend to compose in the viewfinder, this solves some of the problem.
But WHY NOT MAKE A SENSABLE SENSOR? If the shape is more suited to portraits, to the A3 or A4 paper sizes, we get to use more of those precious megapixels we're always obsessing about!!
Pentax has shown a willingness to go its own way. Perhaps they can convince someone to make a sensor to suit the image circle of the new lenses without causing us to lose the ends of the frame.
I'm still waiting for the 645D.
< /RANT >
This probably won't happen until everyone can agree on what print sizes to offer in the first place. Here, I can get 8x12 prints done just about everywhere.. meaning my APS-C sensor is fully useable without any cropping whatsoever. So why would I need a sensor that is then built to an 8x10 specification? Elsewhere, 8x10 is the only size... so then the rant makes sense.
Overseas, they have *completely* different ideas of what standard print sizes are.
Going on tradition is just cheaper for the companies in the long run. It's easier and more cost-efficient to make a standard sensor size, than it is to build sensors around all the different 'standard' print sizes out there.