Is it just tradition? It seems that square would be a better fit for round (cross section) lenses. Round sensors would be even better, but I doubt that I'd enjoy round photos, except planets, moons and flowers...well maybe I would.
Valvebounce said:Hi Chrysoberyl.
I would suggest it is because our field of view is basically rectangular, try it, fix your view on a point and see where a finger disappears from your view, I think my range is closer to 16:9 than 4:3!
Cheers, Graham.
tr573 said:for 35mm format and it's descendants (APS-C, APS-H) , tradition. I'm not sure why the 4/3 people decided on a 4:3 AR. Maybe because it's familiar to people also. Personally, I'm a fan of 1:1 crops.
chrysoberyl said:Is it just tradition? It seems that square would be a better fit for round (cross section) lenses. Round sensors would be even better, but I doubt that I'd enjoy round photos, except planets, moons and flowers...well maybe I would.
scottburgess said:This is a patterned wafer holding AMD Opteron dies before they are diced, finished, tested, and packaged into the chips you're used to putting into your computer. As you can see, a rectangular shape results in a good packing while a round shape would waste much of the silicon and thus drive up the cost per chip substantially. And rectangular makes the most sense for customer experiences since all other tools in the pipeline (screens, printers, etc...) are similarly optimized for rectangular shapes.
While the idea of a round image sounds fun, it does present some large problems for certain kinds of optics--tilt-shift lenses come to mind as an example since they would have to be about twice their current size. Likewise, there is no practical use or need for such sensors.
A square shape would use the most lens surface area in a practical way, and indeed in 6" x 6" cameras you can obtain that. I wouldn't mind seeing a 30mm x 30mm format sensor from Canon (the largest square fitting into the same size camera as a 35mm format) as I often find compositions in the square pleasing and don't always want to crop to 24mm squared.
Meantime, if you occasionally want a round shape use the crop tool in Photoshop.
scottburgess said:A square shape would use the most lens surface area in a practical way...
neuroanatomist said:scottburgess said:A square shape would use the most lens surface area in a practical way...
That's geometrically true, but would have consequences on other aspects of camera performance – e.g. a larger mirror/shutter which would certainly be slower (frame rate and Xsync) and may not be compatible with current flange focal distances.
Also, as stated above the rectangle is more compositionally pleasing than the square (in general), and with a square sensor you'd have a maximum long side of 30.4mm, compared to the 36mm with the current 3:2 rectangle. While the ability to switch from landscape to portrait orientation without loss would be nice, in most cases you'd be throwing away a large number of pixels, assuming you can decide beforehand which orientation you want to use.
tr573 said:for 35mm format and it's descendants (APS-C, APS-H) , tradition. I'm not sure why the 4/3 people decided on a 4:3 AR. Maybe because it's familiar to people also. Personally, I'm a fan of 1:1 crops.
dak723 said:Because a rectangle is a more interesting compositional shape than a square. That is why almost all drawings and paintings are rectangular, too. Round? Consider trying to make round paper or trimming paper to be round to fit the round photo. Not likely.
JMZawodny said:Because film came in long strips, was expensive and the rectangle was the optimum shape (as is a square) to minimize waste. More often than not a rectangle fits the scene better than a square - again minimizing waste.
Pookie said:JMZawodny said:Because film came in long strips, was expensive and the rectangle was the optimum shape (as is a square) to minimize waste. More often than not a rectangle fits the scene better than a square - again minimizing waste.
Nope... squares fit into film strips quite easily and depending on the format you get more squares than rectangles.
neuroanatomist said:Pookie said:JMZawodny said:Because film came in long strips, was expensive and the rectangle was the optimum shape (as is a square) to minimize waste. More often than not a rectangle fits the scene better than a square - again minimizing waste.
Nope... squares fit into film strips quite easily and depending on the format you get more squares than rectangles.
Pretty sure he meant that rectangles and squares are both optimal for fitting on a film strip, compared to circles.
But regardless, film ≠ digital. With film, you pay for every shot. You pay to buy the frame of film. You pay to develop the frame of film. Then you can choose to print a landscape- or portrait-oriented rectangle.
With digital, you can just shoot both ways and select later, for no extra cost.