Why not rotate the sensor 90 degrees instead of grip?

[FrancoD]

This is how a FF sensor block looks like.

Can you visualise how turning that to a vertical position would make a camera taller and "somewhat" more complex ?

BTW, don't forget that you need an additional motor to turn it up and back again.

 

[Fogel70]

Would it be technically too hard to have a rotating sensor in a small body instead of a gripped body?

I seems better and easier to have the grip, controls and EVF rotate 90 degrees and have the internals of the camera fixed. But in either way is a complicated design change for solving a small issue.

 

[a_c_skinner]

Yes.

 

[smith-jones]

While not the same thing, with many shift lenses you can rotate the lens.

Maybe start there (and if necessary crop the sensor square or use a square configuration if the camera has it).

 

[Bob A L]

I would not want to imagine the logistics of trying to accomplish this.

 

[DMKAlex]

Would it be technically too hard to have a rotating sensor in a small body instead of a gripped body?

Why it is so hard to rotate the camera with your hands? I would think having one less moving part is saving a lot of chance for another moving part to fail.

 

[FrancoD]

This reminds me of the Canon Prisma (it had a different name here in Australia).

Demonstrating the use of that top level VF, I had the camera above my head simulating me taking a photo over a crowd.

The customer remarked that the photos would come out upside down. So I demonstrated how to overcome that by placing some upside down photos on the counter and then going to the other side next to the customer to view those photos.

(the point here is that at times we try to find a solution for a problem that does not exist).

 

[FrancoD]

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, 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.

 

[J A C S]

Would it be technically too hard to have a rotating sensor in a small body instead of a gripped body?

I have a better idea. Why not flip the sensor at the beginning of the exposure and then flip it back facing away from the lens? This would eliminate the shutter!

 

[Joseph S Wisniewski]

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.

I think it's a dealbreaker for just about everyone.

1. Redesign of the sensor for multidirectional scanning and cropping. Right now they scan top to bottom, which is great for landscape but horrible for the vertical orientation (this is also a problem when you rotate your camera).

I've not heard of the scanning orientation mattering that much. I'm curious— why?

Because most movement is horizontal. When you have a vertical scan the "image sheer" leads to moving objects "leaning into" motion, while a horizontal scan either compresses or elongates objects, a much more unpleasant effect. That "lean into motion" effect was part of sports photography for decades, even in the flim phlegm film photography days.

You see this a lot in cell phone videos.

 

[mga010]

Would it be technically too hard to have a rotating sensor in a small body instead of a gripped body?

Hasselblad does it on one of their cameras. Very clunky.

It would be better to use square sensors. And cheaper. The cameras would get a bit larger, though. That's not the worst idea, however, extracting three most out of the lenses.

 

[FrancoD]

Would it be technically too hard to have a rotating sensor in a small body instead of a gripped body?

Hasselblad does it on one of their cameras. Very clunky.

It would be better to use square sensors. And cheaper. The cameras would get a bit larger, though. That's not the worst idea, however, extracting three most out of the lenses.

What Hasselblad does that ?

 

[Joseph S Wisniewski]

Would it be technically too hard to have a rotating sensor in a small body instead of a gripped body?

Hasselblad does it on one of their cameras. Very clunky.

It would be better to use square sensors. And cheaper. The cameras would get a bit larger, though. That's not the worst idea, however, extracting three most out of the lenses.

What Hasselblad does that ?

As far as I know, only three Hasselblads had that feature:

• The Hasselblad Fuji DX-2000
• The Hasselblad Leaf AFi-II
• The Hasselblad Leaf Aptus-II 12R

Of those, only the first had a power rotating sensor, the other two had a weird "thumbwheel" arrangement.

 

[FrancoD]

Thanks for that.

I see that they are from a decade ago or more and of course not a design that can be easily done on a typical FF or APS type camera.

BTW, somehow I think that it would be easier to just tilt that camera too.

 

[spider-mario]

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!

 

[FrancoD]

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.

 

[spider-mario]

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.

Exactly! That’s the secret trick.

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

Yes, those little killjoys.

(Just in case it wasn’t obvious, my comment was meant to be tongue-in-cheek.)

 

[mga010]

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

 

[Mackiesback]

Would it be technically too hard to have a rotating sensor in a small body instead of a gripped body?

Because we need to leave something for the photographer to do.

 

[RDMPhotos]

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 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.