Sensor maximisation?

[Cap'n Fishy]

This is all in the name of making rectangular photos. But what if we grew up in a culture where circular photos were the norm? Maybe we are kind of getting there with the use of round avatar photos.

This is the thing. As you can probably guess by now, I am just 'thinking out loud' on this one. We are constraining ourselves by wanting to fit a square peg in a round hole. OK, not usually square, but rectangular - so then you have to decide on how best to fit your rectangle into your round hole. And, once decided, you are stuck with it. So, your camera is either 3:2 or it's 4:3 or it's whatever else. Obviously you can crop to different shapes, but always starting with your one rectangle of choice. And then you are wasting pixels by having them and not using them, the same as you would if you had a circular sensor and just used part of it for any one image. But the circle would have all the options of which pixels to use for each image.

I realise a circle would have areas that were never used, either portrait or landscape. The simple answer would be not to put pixels in those areas that will never be used - the corners of the circle! No doubt this would be very expensive, currently. But how about 10 years from now? There was a time digital cameras were 10 years away. There was a time when focus tracking and precontinuous shooting were 10 years away...

 

[Wilt]

This is the thing. As you can probably guess by now, I am just 'thinking out loud' on this one. We are constraining ourselves by wanting to fit a square peg in a round hole. OK, not usually square, but rectangular - so then you have to decide on how best to fit your rectangle into your round hole. And, once decided, you are stuck with it. So, your camera is either 3:2 or it's 4:3 or it's whatever else. Obviously you can crop to different shapes, but always starting with your one rectangle of choice. And then you are wasting pixels by having them and not using them, the same as you would if you had a circular sensor and just used part of it for any one image. But the circle would have all the options of which pixels to use for each image.

I realise a circle would have areas that were never used, either portrait or landscape. The simple answer would be not to put pixels in those areas that will never be used - the corners of the circle! No doubt this would be very expensive, currently. But how about 10 years from now? There was a time digital cameras were 10 years away. There was a time when focus tracking and precontinuous shooting were 10 years away...

Unfortunately, silicon is grown in cylinders, and sensors are made in horizontal rows and vertical columns within the cirles of silicon cut from the cylinder, then rows and columns of circuits are tested and cut apart. So there are always 'more complete circuits' that can be cut from one cylinder when there is a short direction rather than only-long (square)
Current medium format sensors are all rectangular even though one brand (Hassy) was for a very long time a very strong proponent of the square format which 'eliminates the need to turn a camera between portrait and landscape orientation', and that current rectangular-only is 'tiny' (by medium format standards all the way to 6x7) less-than 645 frame size, and even then still it is very expensive! It speaks for itself the inherent difficulty of making bigger CMOS sensors.

As I pointed out earlier in the thread, 36x36 is quite similar to the smallest of medium format sensors (33 x 44). We already know the ease and economy of 15x22 (crop) vs 24x36 FF sensors in the 135 format.

Folks overwhelmingly buy the R6 for its economy over the R5, similarly they would buy for the economy of 135 format rather than the expense of '135 square', which would likely approach the expense of even the smallest 'less expensive medium format'...and we know how few medium format digital are sold. The camera manufactures are looking for volume sales...probably why the R1 is so very slow to emerge. 'Very small market' is the obstacle.

 

[Mike_d]

This is the thing. As you can probably guess by now, I am just 'thinking out loud' on this one. We are constraining ourselves by wanting to fit a square peg in a round hole. OK, not usually square, but rectangular - so then you have to decide on how best to fit your rectangle into your round hole. And, once decided, you are stuck with it. So, your camera is either 3:2 or it's 4:3 or it's whatever else. Obviously you can crop to different shapes, but always starting with your one rectangle of choice. And then you are wasting pixels by having them and not using them, the same as you would if you had a circular sensor and just used part of it for any one image. But the circle would have all the options of which pixels to use for each image.

I realise a circle would have areas that were never used, either portrait or landscape. The simple answer would be not to put pixels in those areas that will never be used - the corners of the circle! No doubt this would be very expensive, currently. But how about 10 years from now? There was a time digital cameras were 10 years away. There was a time when focus tracking and precontinuous shooting were 10 years away...

What does a round sensor really gain over a 36x36mm one if you're still capturing some kind of rectangle? Sure, you could get a slightly wider image, but it would also need to be shorter. Do you really need to shoot 4:1 landscapes? There just isn't that much wasted image circle.

 

[Cap'n Fishy]

What does a round sensor really gain over a 36x36mm one if you're still capturing some kind of rectangle? Sure, you could get a slightly wider image, but it would also need to be shorter. Do you really need to shoot 4:1 landscapes? There just isn't that much wasted image circle.

The main advantages are being able to rotate the image between landscape and portrait, quickly, rather than having to rotate the camera, and being able to change the aspect ratio without losing pixels.

If the economics of it make it prohibitive, now and forever, then so be it. But, we've come a long way...

 

[Mike_d]

The main advantages are being able to rotate the image between landscape and portrait, quickly, rather than having to rotate the camera, and being able to change the aspect ratio without losing pixels.

If the economics of it make it prohibitive, now and forever, then so be it. But, we've come a long way...

A 36x36 sensor gets you a 36x24 image in either orientation without flipping the camera or a ~30x30mm image without cropping. What are you gaining with a round sensor over a 36x36 square, except the ability to capture very wide aspect ratios without cropping? There's just not that much useful image circle left uncovered by the 36x36 square. Even a very wide video format like 1:2.39 (black rectangle) doesn't gain that many pixels. More common formats like 16:9 gain even less.

 

[Cap'n Fishy]

A 36x36 sensor gets you a 36x24 image in either orientation without flipping the camera or a ~30x30mm image without cropping. What are you gaining with a round sensor over a 36x36 square, except the ability to capture very wide aspect ratios without cropping? There's just not that much useful image circle left uncovered by the 36x36 square. Even a very wide video format like 1:2.39 (black rectangle) doesn't gain that many pixels. More common formats like 16:9 gain even less.

View attachment 180807

Yeh - go with a square if you like.

 

[Nick5]

Cap’n.
Always love a topic that gets us thinkin’

 

[Anton Largiader]

There are people for whom the economy aspect of potentially wasted sensor space isn't that important.

And I can see the advantage of a sensor that doesn't want rotation. In volleyball for instance, the best orientation for players at the net is generally portrait but players in back could be either depending on if they're digging or diving. And you don't really have time to rotate.