SQUARE has two huge advantages: 1. No need to rotate camera for portrait orientation if using a cropped retanglular subset of the square
2. More efficient usage of the lens image circle if and when the full square image is used. The key to making #1 advantage work is to have a specailly marked or masked viewfinder/film-sensor-software gate Regarding #2, with the small circle DA lenses, you could achieve higher overall image resolution with the full square format because you would be recording more of the image circle. There are cons of course to square format, biggest of which is you end up with a larger heavier camera than you need if you never use the full square format. JC O'Connell (mailto:[email protected]) "Honesty is the first chapter in the book of wisdom" - Thomas Jefferson -----Original Message----- From: [email protected] [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of Paul Stenquist Sent: Sunday, April 26, 2009 11:09 AM To: Pentax-Discuss Mail List Subject: Re: Square sensor, was Re: Pentax K7 Certainly not marketable. Most photographers are conditioned to using the rectangle to shape their work. I shot 6x6 for many years. Never did like it, never will. Square is definitely a niche market. And yes, Hasselblad and other MF makers have been successful in that niche, but it's still a niche. Paul On Apr 26, 2009, at 10:01 AM, Sandy Harris wrote: > Mark Roberts <[email protected]> wrote: > >> Dario Bonazza wrote: >>> >>> I've never considered the square sensor as a credible option. >> >> The "square sensor" idea was ridiculous fantasy from the very >> beginning. > > It makes sense in terms of getting the most out of your lenses. For > any given criterion of what acceptable performance at the edges, and > any lens, you'll get a circular area in which the lens is capable of > that performance. A square sensor is more efficient than any other > rectangle at using that. >> From that point of view, it is an obvious optimisation. > > On the other hand, it may not be marketable, it would > need a different mirror/viewfinder assembly, and I have > no idea how it would affect sensor manufacturing cost. > > It is not "ridiculous fantasy". It is an idea with obvious merit, but > perhaps not practical or marketable. > > -- > Sandy Harris, > Quanzhou, Fujian, China > > -- > PDML Pentax-Discuss Mail List > [email protected] > http://pdml.net/mailman/listinfo/pdml_pdml.net > to UNSUBSCRIBE from the PDML, please visit the link directly above > and follow the directions. -- PDML Pentax-Discuss Mail List [email protected] http://pdml.net/mailman/listinfo/pdml_pdml.net to UNSUBSCRIBE from the PDML, please visit the link directly above and follow the directions. -- PDML Pentax-Discuss Mail List [email protected] http://pdml.net/mailman/listinfo/pdml_pdml.net to UNSUBSCRIBE from the PDML, please visit the link directly above and follow the directions.
