Turning Full Frame on its ear...

OK, I got to thinking...

Digital Full Frame got it's namesake to match 36mm width film negative - or 36 X 24mm to be more precise - and was adopted to be able to use the same lens family format.

So... why the 3:2 ratio of width vs. height? Where did that come from and why? I'm sure it was grandfathered in from the early days of film but I'm not sure why. Some of you may recall medium format cameras. That film was square: 2-1/4" X 2-1/4"

I know a lot of Full Frame folks consider themselves as maximizing field of view, but it just ain't so. A 36mm X 24mm rectangle fits into a 43.3 dia circle. There is 864 sq mm in a Full Frame sensor. Now, in that same circle (which designates the 'usable' area of the lens image), you can fit a 30.6 X 30.6 square. This equates to 936.4 sq mm, or roughly 8% more area. So, when jumping from film to digital, wouldn't it have been a good opportunity to buck the 3:2 convention and maximize the area available from the lens image?

Let's take that a step further... if the sensor was round, you would now have an image (albeit round) of 1471.8 sq mm. That's over 65% more image area! Of course, round images would be silly, but think of the cropping options (sensor engineers are starting to get the willies right about now... you know their brains are only wired in rows and columns)

The thing is, it was much harder to crop in the days of film. Today it just takes a few keystrokes. Yet, we've grandfathered formats that are no longer needed at the expense of maximizing the information available to us without changing a thing (engineering effort notwithstanding).

So, if you think your full frame is all that, remember that you are wasting over 40% of the available image as offered by your lens. That's quite a crop you've got there, Mr. Full Frame!

:p

35 mm film is 35 mm wide - minus space for sprockets = 24 mm. 3:2 makes each frame 36 mm long.

Most scenes will be cropped rectangularly for compositiponal purposes, especially now that cropping is so much easier. It's much more sensibe to have a rectangular format in a camera that is easy to switch on its axis than in the great majority of cases to waste data by cropping it out.

Why 3:2?
One answer is why not?
Another is that it's not the only aspect ratio used.

Another is that it's a close integer approximation to phi, although 8:5 would be better.

I can crop my film images just as easily as my 5DII images.I place the 8x10 sheet of film in a drum scanner, scan, fly it to PS, and crop, or put it in my enlarger, and move the cold light head up and down and move the easel to crop.In fact I can crop a film image way more than with my 5DII as there is tons more information available.But.....I much prefer cropping the image with a viewing card before it even hits the film or sensor.

30x30mm square format digital... I like the sound of that!

FF is definitely old fashioned and there are persistent rumours Canon will be the first major dslr maker to eliminate it entirely in favor of crop. Just look at the trends in their last few major bodies.

cloudswimmer wrote in post #11501290
I can crop my film images just as easily as my 5DII images.I place the 8x10 sheet of film in a drum scanner, scan, fly it to PS, and crop, or put it in my enlarger, and move the cold light head up and down and move the easel to crop.In fact I can crop a film image way more than with my 5DII as there is tons more information available.But.....I much prefer cropping the image with a viewing card before it even hits the film or sensor.

jeans a heavy jacket and flipflops

as for 30x30, i would be ok working with that

I'm all for the circle effect!

But then what would we do with all those expensive Canon petal lens hoods?

Andy R wrote in post #11501337
jeans a heavy jacket and flipflops

as for 30x30, i would be ok working with that

Ohh...yeah guess that would look odd, I was on the beach in Laguna, CA

Canon wouldn't make a square format camera, because then they wouldn't be able to sell any battery grips

Going back in the past I can remember my fathers old Kodak camera that used 620 roll film with a 3.25" x 2.25" which gives a ratio of 1.444, then there is the golden section which is 1.618 so in the interest of aesthetics shouldn't future cameras be built to this.

Products have an evolution path (very much like animals)
you find a lot of features that are left over from past needs (the car still possesses features from the old horse buggy)

a round or square sensor makes engineering sense but i am not sure the marketing departments will like it

Funny how things change... When I first got into photography in the early '80s (35mm Kodachrome), the 36x24mm size was considered "small".

sensor production cost comes to mind. the larger the area is, the more expensive the sensor will be. round sensors are BS, i think that is obvious. also isn't this connected to our eye's natural FOV? we see a horizontal rectangular image, and try to resemble that by having a horizontal rectangle recording format in the camera.

^^^^ my thinking to. Its a shape we associate with because of our vision. Thats why TV's and monitors are that shape...... even most windows.