Just thinking - digital cameras have been around for 15 years or so. DSLRs have been around for 10 years. Digital MF has been around for almost as long. So, when are digital 612 and 617 cameras going to show up?
In film version, these are immensely versatile formats - a panoramic format, utilising the full sensor area, for landscapes (typically the most demanding IQ-wise, so it makes sense to use the ful sensor area for these shots) and easily croppable for more typical, non-landscape aspect ratios. Also, the long sensor/film area partly negates the need for shift, since you can just fame the subject towards one end of the image, then crop, to achieve the same effect.
So, why is it taking so long for these formats to show up in digital? Surely the demand is there... Digital 48x36 MF is all well and good, but, by the time you've cropped to a 3:2 aspect ratio, you're down to 48x32 - not a huge margin bette than the 36x24 of full frame.
