My DIY Sony X-Pan or A7riiP

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.

Cropping afterwards is not an option for me, as I would like to determine the image in the viewfinder.

But since I didn't want to invest in another system, I only had one option: masking.

My old a7rii served as a test device, which, cropped to 3: 1, still delivers around 20mpix.

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.

Sensor tape

The principle does not really differ from the function of old point and shoots, which covered the top and bottom of the film with a slide.

It is important not to stick the tape flush on the guide lines, as the distance between the sensor and the surface of the protective glass is still too great and there is shadowing along the edge of the tape strip.

Guidelines

Any 24 lens to get the field of view of the 45 Xpan lens and off you go.

The workflow in post is simple: first of all, crop to 3: 1 and then apply all corrections as usual.

Here are a few first test images.

Sony X-Pan

Sony X-Pan

Sony X-Pan

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.

The difference lies in the fact that the image is also shown cropped in the viewfinder. Very important for me personally because I prefer the viewfinder.

Of course, masking the display is easier, but the display can hardly be seen in strong light.

There is adhesive tape that leaves hardly any traces, of course you have to pay attention to this before applying, or you can test it on a mirror or another glass surface before sticking it to the cover glas.

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... 

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....

The results are very nice, but I wouldn't stick tape on any of my cameras' sensors.

Is there any camera that has a 3:1 crop option ? The Sigma fp that I have will do 3:2 but hot 3:1.

In Adobe Camera Raw, you can set 3:1 as a custom crop ratio, so you could load in a couple of hundred images, "Select All", crop them all to that ratio, and then go through them raising and lowering the frames to suit.

Don Cox

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.