Square sensor?

jjswee wrote in post #9209187
Circular sensor will never be created. You need to think past the camera and think about manufacturing. When designing the chips on a silicon wafer, you need to maximize the output per wafer to increase yield. If you have circular sensors, you will have a lot of dead space. This is bad, and the manufacturers would never build it.

That is, when the sensors cost a lot to manufacture. However, as prices of sensors drop, this would be much more feasible.

Irrespective of cost, throwing away that much material does not make sense when the accepted format (rectangular sensor) has very few faults (if any).

What I'd like to see is a focusing screen that looks like this.

The overall screen is 3:2 ratio (standard for 35mm and formats derived from it.)
The first lines in from the sides mark 5×7 format.
The second lines in from the sides mark 8×10 format.
The third lines in from the sides mark square format.
The fourth lines in from the sides and the first lines in from the top and bottom mark thirds (for the rule of thirds).
The center lines are just that.
The inner circle marks the size of the spot metering field (3.5% of sensor area in this example).
The outer circle marks the size of the partial metering field (8.0% of sensor area in this example).

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That would be fine if your lines appeared selectively, when needed. Nightmare to use if they were permanent!

I disagree it would be a nightmare, as one would soon get used to it.

But for selective lines, edge lighting would do quite nicely.

Or the lines could be provided by a transparent LCD overlay. This approach would create lots of possibilities.

Ainoko wrote in post #9210446
That is, when the sensors cost a lot to manufacture. However, as prices of sensors drop, this would be much more feasible.

I don't think you understand what goes into the manufacturing of chips. Its a very very complicated process and they have spent billions to increase yield. They aren't going to throw that all down the toilet to have circular sensors.

20droger wrote in post #9215558
I disagree it would be a nightmare, as one would soon get used to it.

But for selective lines, edge lighting would do quite nicely.

Or the lines could be provided by a transparent LCD overlay. This approach would create lots of possibilities.

All that crap in the viewfinder is unnecessary if you have an imagination.

breal101 wrote in post #9215765
All that crap in the viewfinder is unnecessary if you have an imagination.

So, you're saying that Hasselblad users have no imagination?

My vote goes for circular sensor; silicon wafers are circular. (ref: http://en.wikipedia.or​g/wiki/Silicon_wafer ) Problem now with large high density sensor chip is high reject rate; a large low-density sensor would have low reject rate & larger sensor possibility: an 4" wafer with same density as 300D sensor would blow away results from smaller higher density sensor in terms of usable information! (I want 8" wafer!)

20droger wrote in post #9216315
So, you're saying that Hasselblad users have no imagination?

Not all Hasselblad view screens have crop marks, mine had cross type markings in the center of the screen for vertical and horizontal alignment. I could have chosen any number of designs but used the basic screen for 25 years. Shooting square does take a little time to get used to but I liked the built in rise and fall for architectural shooting, it lets you keep the camera level and still get a reasonable amount of sky in your crop. For interiors it allows for keeping the camera level and cropping out the ceiling. Once you print a bunch of 8x10s and 5x7s you get a feel for cropping in your head. It's the same with photoshop, it allows for cropping freestyle or constrained to any number of proportions.

breal101 wrote in post #9215765
All that crap in the viewfinder is unnecessary if you have an imagination.

My cropping never depends on the format anyway. It depends on the subject. Viewfinder lines are irrelevant to me.

siriusdogstar wrote in post #9216651
My vote goes for circular sensor; silicon wafers are circular. (ref: http://en.wikipedia.or​g/wiki/Silicon_wafer ) Problem now with large high density sensor chip is high reject rate; a large low-density sensor would have low reject rate & larger sensor possibility: an 4" wafer with same density as 300D sensor would blow away results from smaller higher density sensor in terms of usable information! (I want 8" wafer!)

This is a silicon wafer for Canon Full Frame sensors. It is a 7 inch wafer:

jjswee wrote in post #9217295
This is a silicon wafer for Canon Full Frame sensors. It is a 7 inch wafer:

You know how much those sensors cost. You want a 4 inch sensor? Full frame sensors are 1.4 by 1 inch. Talk about an expensive camera. And a HUGE one at that. Medium Format is only 2 by 1.5.

Putting one sensor on one wafer would have terrible yields. The benefit of multiple chips on one wafer is that if one part of the wafer is bad, only one sensor goes bad. I know you were just playing, but I'm just sayin.

Quite a wafer.

But I do notice that there's a 4×4 sensor rectangle in that wafer. Just imaging—a 144×96mm (5.7"×3.8") 337.6 megapixel (5D Mark II density) sensor in a large-format camera! Sweet mother of God, that would be something!

Or, if you prefer, a 122×122mm square sensor (same diagonal). That's a 4.8" square sensor.

More realistically, there are many lenses that only project a rectangle (okay, more of a rough ellipse) onto the 2:3 sensor. So it would not be able to fill an oversized square sensor.

For example, look at the rear mount of this 24-105L - its a rectangle
https://photography-on-the.net …php?p=9212262&p​ostcount=2

jjswee wrote in post #9217295
This is a silicon wafer for Canon Full Frame sensors. It is a 7 inch wafer:

You know how much those sensors cost. You want a 4 inch sensor? Full frame sensors are 1.4 by 1 inch. Talk about an expensive camera. And a HUGE one at that. Medium Format is only 2 by 1.5.

Putting one sensor on one wafer would have terrible yields. The benefit of multiple chips on one wafer is that if one part of the wafer is bad, only one sensor goes bad. I know you were just playing, but I'm just sayin.

maybe not. I wrote "same density as 300D sensor" thinking advances made producing wafer with far far greater density enable relatively easy simple production of larger sensor at low density with low low reject rate. Okay, 4 rectangular sensors per wafer might have a lower reject rate. The dream gets even better considering 450mm (18 inches) wafer standard was approved in 2008. LF digital!