My DIY Sony X-Pan or A7riiP

ProfHankD wrote:

SaschaSelli wrote:

ProfHankD wrote:

SaschaSelli wrote:

A few digital alternatives to the Xpan have been around for some time. Hasselblad, Fuji or Panasonic natively display the 65:24 format in the viewfinder.

... Without further ado, two strips of tape on the sensor protective glass, using the lines on the display as a guide and the Sony viewfinder only showed the desired 3: 1 format.

It hurts even to think about tape on the cover glass.... Aren't the grid lines close enough?

Anyway, on the older Sonys, that still support playmemories, it would be possible to use OpenMemories to make an app to do arbitrary aspect crops... but possible!=easy.

For me personally, the lines are unfortunately not enough. Since I sometimes go on longer hikes over several days and do not take a computer with me, a lot of pictures accumulate over the course of days, which I would have to crop at home according to my memory.

Of course, the images could be crop by using a batch function in Photoshop, but then I still miss the crop in the viewfinder.

The simplest solution would be if Sony made it possible for us to choose from a large number of formats or even to be able to enter own formats in camera...

Again, that's do-able using OpenMemories on the A7RII, but I don't think anybody has done it... much rather that than tape on the sensor. For that matter, tape on the sensor doesn't crop -- it seriously darkens a large area, potentially confusing a lot of processing steps (including exposure). I have a hard time getting past being horrified by this idea....

Everyone ticks differently. I have no hesitation in modifying something and the devices are often more robust than you might think.

The multi-field exposure metering was also, to my surprise, not affected. For critical exposures, however, I always use the spot measurement coupled to the focus point.