Why not rotate the sensor 90 degrees instead of grip?

[Victor Engel]

Instead of rotating why not square then?

It's an obvious improvement. All the control buttons don't move. The hand positions and tripod config doesn't change either. The screen and EVF would need to be square and letterboxed which would affect the camera design.

Would the raw be a square, with a defaulted outline location embedded? A big file though. (Raws now are slightly larger than the jpg. In the edit, corrections need to be turned off to show the full size.)

If it were that obvious, in practical terms not just as an idea, it would have been done already.

The problem is that you either have a larger and more expensive camera (because you need a larger sensor/VF and screen,

The diagonal would still be the same size and is determined by the design image circle. Both a square sensor and a rectangular one are crops of the circle. Sure, components that depend on the crop would need to be redesigned.

apart from the body size) or you have a much smaller capture and viewing area . Square sensors make sense only if you like square photos.

You can crop to whatever rectangle you prefer.

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www.diyphotography.net

 

[Victor Engel]

https://www.dpreview.com/news/2411745048/nikon-develops-1-type-square-cmos-sensor-that-can-capture-hdr-video-at-1-000-fps

 

[Fogel70]

But in fact, I'd buy a 50 MP square sensor. Something like 36x36. Some lenses wouldn't work, but most would.

You can always buy a Fuji GFX medium format camera and get 33 x 33 mm square images. With GFX 100S you get approx 75 MP from square images.

 

[Fogel70]

1. Image quality. High end lenses are "cropped rectangular" by their petal lens hoods (which are built-in on some lenses like ultrawides or fisheyes) or internal baffles

This seems like a deal breaker to me. Almost all my lenses have a rectangular rear baffle/plate/opening, and many (but not all) have petal hoods. This also leans against the idea of a square sensor.

Just rotate the lens mount with the sensor!

Yes, it's just so easy.

In fact most things are really easy to do in theory.

Things change when the practice bit comes into play. it's always those little details that spoil the fun.

I would not have to be a very complex design if using the most obious design. Having the sensor, electronics and lens mount fixed on main part of the body, and make the grip, controls and EVF rotate 90 degrees around the body.

But any solutiuon for rotating the senor to avoid having to rotate the whole camera would be quite annoying, as it would be slower or require more actions than to simply rotate the whole camera 90 degrees.

It would either be a motorized function that probably take a number of seconds for the rotation to take place, or a manual function similar to mount or dismount a lens. Push a button and rotate the circular center part of the camera body 90 degrees.

And it will add size, weight and cost to the camera, plus additional failure points.

 

[donaldsc]

Not at all interested

 

[Joseph S Wisniewski]

Instead of rotating why not square then?

It's an obvious improvement. All the control buttons don't move. The hand positions and tripod config doesn't change either. The screen and EVF would need to be square and letterboxed which would affect the camera design.

Would the raw be a square, with a defaulted outline location embedded? A big file though. (Raws now are slightly larger than the jpg. In the edit, corrections need to be turned off to show the full size.)

If it were that obvious, in practical terms not just as an idea, it would have been done already.

The problem is that you either have a larger and more expensive camera (because you need a larger sensor/VF and screen,

The diagonal would still be the same size and is determined by the design image circle. Both a square sensor and a rectangular one are crops of the circle.

This is true, but consider one thing:

Unless you're making the sensor round, or you're using a square sensor that circumscribes the image circle instead of inscribing it (Panasonic did do this, once, partially. I thought it was a great idea) the only rectangle that makes full use of the image circle is the one that matches the crop of your finished product. Any other crop from a rectangular sensor distances you from the image circle.

If you have a square sensor with a 43.3mm diagonal and you crop a 3:2 from it, you've got a 30.6x20.4mm image with a 36.8mm diagonal, effectively a 0.85x crop factor.

Sure, components that depend on the crop would need to be redesigned.

apart from the body size) or you have a much smaller capture and viewing area . Square sensors make sense only if you like square photos.

You can crop to whatever rectangle you prefer.

https://www.diyphotography.net/circular-image-sensor-best-thing-ever-heck-yeah/

Sure. There is the little detail of more than doubling the sensor cost, the increase in the mass the image stabilization system has to move around, and a tiny thing about cutting round chips. Then there's the tiny issue of letting in 70% more stray light as opposed to a rectangular hood/internal baffles.

But aside from that, Mrs. Lincoln, how did you like the play?

 

[Joseph S Wisniewski]

https://www.dpreview.com/news/24117...ensor-that-can-capture-hdr-video-at-1-000-fps

It is an efficient format when you deal in round images. ;-)

 

[Joseph S Wisniewski]

I'm hoping everybody remembers the gh1 and gh2 sensors. They use a larger sensor, as to take full advantage of the μ4/3 image Circle, utilizing multiple aspect ratios.

I was just talking about it elsewhere in this discussion.

I often shot in square mode. I remember wishing that they had a larger sensor to take full advantage of the square aspect ratio. There was talk about that, however instead Panasonic dropped it all together and went back to the smaller sensor. Im asuming the cost factor was the reason. I also remember wishing that somebody would come up with a hack that would enable me to use the entire sensor in a mode so I could take a little bit more advantage of my Legacy glass becauseI have never bought a micro 4/3 lens other than the kit lens that came with my camera. But that more likely scenario did not happen either. I think I'm more practical device would be something that would clamp onto the lens and allow you to rotate the whole camera wallet on a tripod. Similar to the very large zoom lenses that come with that feature built-in.

They call those "camera rotators".

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www.sciencecenter.net

Warning: the site looks like classic mid 90s web design.

If you don't need a 360 degree spin, there are several partial rotators that cover anywhere from 90 to 180 degrees.

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www.bhphotovideo.com

Mamiya made a great one, but they're long out of business.

Gary Justice made the "Just-Rite" bracket. I had one, they were pretty good.

 

[mga010]

But in fact, I'd buy a 50 MP square sensor. Something like 36x36. Some lenses wouldn't work, but most would.

You can always buy a Fuji GFX medium format camera and get 33 x 33 mm square images. With GFX 100S you get approx 75 MP from square images.

That's right. And I'd get 50MP from 2:3 portrait images. But maybe a 33x33 with 40 MP would be sufficient.