Why not make sensors square?

ernesto

ernesto

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Assuming the lens doesn't care what shape the sensor is why not just make them square (with the sides of the square matching the longest side of a like sensor)

The camera could always be held in the same position (no need for grip) and the decision on landscape or portrait can be made afterwards with a simple P of L button in the software or even kept square) Could even have an L or P button on camera for EVFs.

No loss of IQ as same number of pixels in the 'cropped' images as would have previously been in the rectangular sensor.

Probably a very simple reason that I have overlooked - wouldn't be the first time!
 
It would be even more efficient to make them circular.
 
i remember reading this years ago in ap mag, i think it would make sense to make square jobs, would give a bigger res overall

but i guess it will cost more to make it square as you end up getting more sensor, if they make them more narrow you get more from the same amount of sensor raw materials
 
Siilver said:
i remember reading this years ago in ap mag, i think it would make sense to make square jobs, would give a bigger res overall

but i guess it will cost more to make it square as you end up getting more sensor, if they make them more narrow you get more from the same amount of sensor raw materials
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Explain the maths for this
 
Richard King said:
Explain the maths for this
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If you want the same width as a 35mm sensor, you would need to make the short side the same as the width as the long, making it a square, so making the sensor bigger, higher pixel count and cost more

Or they could make them smaller, so the long side matches the short, give less pixels, smaller sensor and cost less

It's up to them I would want it bigger
 
I'd guess that no one makes one because they believe it wouldn't be economically viable.

Personally I've never found it too much of an issue to make a square crop in PS. I have and have had cameras with 1:1 crop modes built in but all in all I think I'd rather do it by cropping later. I've never run out of pixels, if you frame the shot with the intent of being able to produce a 1:1 you should be ok.

Personally I'd rather have a more conventially shaped sensor and crop 1:1 later.

Anyway, most people seem to want images that fill a computer or TV screen these days so even portrait orientation seems a bit weird to some.
 
because 35mm is 3:2 and legacy lenses are optomised for said size etc etc etc I suppose.
 
ghoti said:
It would be even more efficient to make them circular.
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+1
Match the image circle.. like the old Kodak circular prints..
 
I'm sure I read somewhere recently that having a picture that is has a ratio of 1 to 1.6, e.g. one side is 10cm the other 16cm, regardless of which way up is more pleasing to the human eye. That, from what I've read, is the reason they keep close to that ratio for pictures.
 
If they made the sensors bigger and you knew you where doing a square, it would be better off, the higher pixel count

But I cant think any other benefits other than the 90deg thing
 
Don't forget the need for a bigger mirror and viewfinder optics.
 
I think some consideration needs to be paid to the early pioneers and think why they chose to use rectangular frame and what the "photograph" is an evolution of.
What existed before nicephore niepce fixed the first image?
Paintings, etchings, wood block carvings, tapestries. Now not all were rectangular by any means but most follow this format and have done for centuries. Its aesthetic value for framing is obvious.
That's not to say that square format cameras are pointless, far from it, i find that a square crop works marvelously for abstract images and images that need balance.
 
Think about why most of the old single and twin lens reflex cameras had square images, usually 6 x 6cm in the first place...

It was because rectangular formats required the camera to be tilted onto its side for some shots. Cameras then didn't have a pentaprism, so obviously rotating the camera 90 degrees resulted in the viewing image being upside down, which was ... difficult to view and to get square - much better to have a square image and to crop it to shape later.

That problem no longer exists, so there is now no need for its solution.
 
Matt989 said:
Think about it...the only thing you would gain is not having to rotate your camera 90deg, i.e. not worth the extra cost as explained above.
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You gain on the available aspect ratios with a circular sensor. You get a larger 1:1, 5:4, etc aspect ratio image than by cropping from a 3:2 base image. And that's without the possibilities os a circular image.

For anyone that doesn't use any image aspect ratio other than the conventional standard, this won't be a benefit.


The interesting speculation is the direction that camera design might take with a square or circular sensor. Without the need to rotate the camera, how would the ergonomics change?
 
Interesting thread. can't see a need for a square sensor. If I think a picture will work well as a square I can always crop it later, this almost never happens as generally I dont like square pictures, they look wrong.

If you had a square sensor, would the speedlights also have to be square?
 
I rather like the idea, in theory, but it's never going to happen.

The only advanatge is not needing to turn the camera for portrait format. If that's an issue for some, then duplicate controls seems to be the easier option, as a few of the top end models have now.

The downsides are that for the current FF 36x24mm image circle, the maximum square format would be about 31x31mm, so either way you're losing sensor area once it's cropped, and the sensor would be more expensive.

That aside, the considerably larger viewfinder optics, mirror and shutter would make cameras bigger and heavier, the mirror/shutter would be heavier and slower, mirror-slap would go up, frame rates would go down, x-sync speeds would go down.

Which sounds like a rather poor deal in exchange for a solution to what appears to be a non-existant problem.
 
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Thanks for the replies and opinions, interesting.

Agree there isn't too much of a problem to solve which is probably all the answer that is needed! I also wouldn't have a clue how much extra it would cost as I don't know how much the real cost of a sensor is to the manufacturer and what % that is of the overall cost so don't have a cost/benefit.

Just to clear up, for those suggesting you can crop a square later. That is not the point here, I am not after a square end result.
The image is only taken as a square and you can then fit portrait or landscape within that square, with added benefit of being able to move the landscape crop up or down and the portrait crop left or right.

And not disagreeing, but are lenses really optimised for a rectangular sensor? I sort of assumed as they were round it wouldn't care what shape the sensor is?
 
With a square sensor, there would be no such thing as portrait or landscape orientation, so a feature to select it afterward would be pointless.

Think about it...
 
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ernesto said:
Thanks for the replies and opinions, interesting.

Agree there isn't too much of a problem to solve which is probably all the answer that is needed! I also wouldn't have a clue how much extra it would cost as I don't know how much the real cost of a sensor is to the manufacturer and what % that is of the overall cost so don't have a cost/benefit.

Just to clear up, for those suggesting you can crop a square later. That is not the point here, I am not after a square end result.
The image is only taken as a square and you can then fit portrait or landscape within that square, with added benefit of being able to move the landscape crop up or down and the portrait crop left or right.

And not disagreeing, but are lenses really optimised for a rectangular sensor? I sort of assumed as they were round it wouldn't care what shape the sensor is?
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I was going to do this to show here, but I'm busy today.
Draw 3 identical circles, then put a square a 5:4, and a 3:2 rectangle inside the circle as large as you can.

Now think about the mirror size and therefore the dimensions of the shutterbox.

If it doesnt show you why the square isn't giving you much of an advantage, it'll show how much redesign of the camera is required to achieve it.

People assume that as the frame is 36mm wide we could have a 36mm square, but we can't because the lens is giving us that circular image. The square wouldn't have a significantly larger area than the current rectangle, so cropping it to a rectangle would lower the resolution below what we have now.
 
odd jim said:
With a square sensor, there would be no such thing as portrait or landscape orientation, so a feature to select it afterward would be pointless.
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You have misunderstood what I am getting at. The portait or landscape would be a crop purely to make the image fit to what is generally required/pleasing for an image.
A square image may work but they are generally not used and composition is helped by landscape or portrait. That is why you would select it afterwards (unless you wanted to keep the square and get the most from it)

Using a larger square sensor enables more flexibility with the captured image and no loss in quality (but there is clearly going to be a £ cost to it)
 
Phil V said:
Draw 3 identical circles, then put a square a 5:4, and a 3:2 rectangle inside the circle as large as you can.
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Thanks Phil. I should have done that to start with as I completely missed the point that the rectangle can be wider than the square as the corners are in a wider part of the circle due to the lower height.

And although a circular sensor is the answer to allow any shaped crop to be taken with maximum amount of pixels I can see the mirror box size problem but then mirrors are so last year that may not actually be an issue. :)
 
Ed Sutton said:
What if there is no mirror?
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Then you're stuck with a 3rd rate camera*;)













*Until LCD and AF technology improves (a lot), and the other points still stand, the square cropped to a rectangle will be smaller than the largest rectangle you could produce, unless you went for the round sensor and made the choice at capture.
 
Round is silly, will be wasting more pixels than anything, as if you want the full width of the circle and you want a straight edge it is going to be narrow as anything, to the taller you need it, means its not going to be as wide the best crop for a circle will be a square, this would ,mean your losing the least of each side, so your back to the square sensor really
 
It really depends on how much the sensor would increase in price (again I don't even know what something like an APS-C sensor costs the like of Canon or Nikon) If it is like most things it probably costs a tenner so the increase in potentially wasted pixels would be 2 quid.

and I can see there is also a need to get over that old fashioned mirror nonsense :)
 
ernesto said:
It really depends on how much the sensor would increase in price (again I don't even know what something like an APS-C sensor costs the like of Canon or Nikon) If it is like most things it probably costs a tenner so the increase in potentially wasted pixels would be 2 quid.
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The sensor is still an expensive item to produce, that's why no serious manufacturer is happy to be throwing pixels away just yet.

ernesto said:
and I can see there is also a need to get over that old fashioned mirror nonsense :)
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You have seen these threads before?:cuckoo:

Contrast detect AF - not as good as phase detect - maybe one day? But for now a mirrorless camera can't compare to a DSLR for AF performance, I still can't understand why serious photographers can't grasp the importance of fast accurate AF.

Electronic Viewfinders - are still awful compared to Optical, they'll get better and when they do it'll be awesome, the idea of having a histogram live in the VF is genius - and rear screens are just the worst medium for controlling a camera handheld in daylight, that's a physical dealbreaker.
 
And APS-C sensor seems to cost around £50, but a full frame costs (according to Canon, 20x that, meaning it probbaly costs even less that £50) All Googled and all pinch of salt I suppose!

But what I hadn't realized was due to the manufacturing process a bigger sensor will have a much high failure rate in production and 50% are thrown away instead on 5% (or something like that) So making the larger circle may cost a fair bit more.

I was joking about the old fashioned mirror nonsense, I prefer mirrors myself and agree with your comments (you didn't really have to make them, sorry for time wasted :) )
 
ernesto said:
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I was joking about the old fashioned mirror nonsense, I prefer mirrors myself and agree with your comments (you didn't really have to make them, sorry for time wasted :) )
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They'll not be wasted round here, there are plenty of people who haven't grasped the limitations placed by physics.:)

I was aware of the failure rate when making sensors, although that was from years ago, I'd presume that the success rate is rising and the cost going down, but the actual area difference between sensors is difficult to understand without seeing it. How many times have you heard people say that FF is only 1.6 times bigger than APSC?:cuckoo:
 
Phil V said:
Contrast detect AF - not as good as phase detect - maybe one day? But for now a mirrorless camera can't compare to a DSLR for AF performance, I still can't understand why serious photographers can't grasp the importance of fast accurate AF.
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Depends entirely in the kind of work you're doing

For my purposes, any kind of AF is mostly a nice to have.

If you're shooting sport, I can appreciate it's essential.
 
I think you have to buy in to the pleasing aspect ratio thing, to qualify most of the points raised against a square format sensor so far.
That and the feats of re-design required to accommodate a square format. Unfortunately for square, small format photography has evolved around an oblong ideal, its a bit late in the day to scrap the caddy and start a fresh.

Saying that though, back in the day there were half frame cameras which were nearer square, I have some family prints about 3 inch square from years back, I dunno what they were shot on, and I kinda remember my first disc film which also appeared to have pretty squarish frames..:shrug:

Mebbe your average 60's jo po, didn't buy in to oblong either, or more likely couldn't care less..:lol:
 
126 film was square (nominally 26mm square on 35mm film but without the sprocket holes) and pretty popular in its day - all those Instamatics Kodak sold.
 
that sounds plausible for those 3x3's, don't think disposables where available in my dads day, a cheapy instamatic though is right up his street.....disposable kinda guy..lol
 
I've been scanning some 1970s holiday snaps for my in-laws which were taken on 126 Kodachrome with an Insatamatic. There's one film which covers two different holidays a year apart :)
 
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