...are an aid to good portrait composition. The Olympus cameras all have the ability to crop square. So do the new Samsung NX cameras. Makes me wonder why Sony didn't add that little fifty cent bit of firmware to their cameras. It certainly would have made me happier.
Every feature is a trade off between the cost of adding and maintaining it, and how much value it adds when a consumer is getting ready to buy the camera...plus increases time to market.
I just purchased an Nex-6 a couple of weeks ago. I quite like the camera, especially as a platform for adapting some nice old manual lenses. I'm really very happy with it. But yes, I'm puzzled as to why we cannot shoot square. It would be a dead simple firmware upgrade. I love shooting square and Sony won't let me.
Think about it. Micro Four Thirds uses a 4:3 image ratio obviously. To get a square you just trim the sides. It's already so close to being a square. When we had 4:3 monitors, we thought of them as square compared to the widescreen monitors we use today. Sony, Nikon, Canon, Fuji and is using a 3:2 where sometimes you see 16:9 crop modes. Makes sense! 3:2 is already seemingly wide, and it takes a trip off the top and bottom to make 16:9 so. Taking a square crop of 3:2 loses a lot of information and the lens perspective changes as well. What's the point? Especially if you're shooting full frame. Might as well use a smaller sensor where depth and compression is greater (e.g. M43, 1.7", 1", etc. etc.). Compare these small sensor crops compared to a dedicated medium format 6x6. Cropping on smaller sensors doesn't make a big deal especially if the image ratio is similar to 1:1, but as you get bigger in format, cropping changes things a big deal, and dedicated 1:1 ratio cameras are just produce fabulous photographs.
I too miss this feature a great deal. I used extensively (mostly in black and white, and in an attempt to mimic your style Kirk, I have to admit it !) on my late Panny GX-1 and truly enjoyed it immensely. The square is a very natural format for me really impoves my composition and boost my whole inspiration. Maybe we can hope it's added on some future Sony cameras...
I would like a square sensor of say 36 megapixels, with a camera button to select cropping mode of square, portrait or landscape (or 4:3, 3:2, 5:4 for good measure) which would be shown in EVF. Now that increasing pixel count is now longer as important,the loss of unused pixels would be outweighed by choice of format and avoiding the need to rotate the camera. And when shooting cropped, it would be nice if the full square image was always saved in the raw file, allowing software to recover the cropped area if the original framing choice was too tight.
Reminds me when there were rumors about 36x36 camera from Sony. Wish they made it, with ability to crop to various aspect ratios (like Panasonic GH1 and GH2). With EVF, it would be pretty amazing.. And maybe ability to use full size of sensor with some medium format lens as a bonus. Plus you can change from horizontal 3:2 to vertical just with flick of switch..
Here's what I'd like from Sony: Let me dial in a square shooting mode so that my viewfinder shows a square crop of the image so I can compose it and shoot it. However, don't throw away the pixels outside of the crop just in case I like the 3:2 version later on in post-processing.
I recently started using the 1:1 on my E-M5 and like it a lot. Definitely isolates some subjects & more prominent, where the 3:2 I'm use to has too much unneeded sides space. Cropping the 3:2 afterwards is different thought process than composing with 1:1.
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Every feature is a trade off between the cost of adding and maintaining it, and how much value it adds when a consumer is getting ready to buy the camera...plus increases time to market.
I love that the older bodies called it 6:6 ;)
I just purchased an Nex-6 a couple of weeks ago. I quite like the camera, especially as a platform for adapting some nice old manual lenses. I'm really very happy with it. But yes, I'm puzzled as to why we cannot shoot square. It would be a dead simple firmware upgrade. I love shooting square and Sony won't let me.
Think about it. Micro Four Thirds uses a 4:3 image ratio obviously. To get a square you just trim the sides. It's already so close to being a square. When we had 4:3 monitors, we thought of them as square compared to the widescreen monitors we use today. Sony, Nikon, Canon, Fuji and is using a 3:2 where sometimes you see 16:9 crop modes. Makes sense! 3:2 is already seemingly wide, and it takes a trip off the top and bottom to make 16:9 so. Taking a square crop of 3:2 loses a lot of information and the lens perspective changes as well. What's the point? Especially if you're shooting full frame. Might as well use a smaller sensor where depth and compression is greater (e.g. M43, 1.7", 1", etc. etc.). Compare these small sensor crops compared to a dedicated medium format 6x6. Cropping on smaller sensors doesn't make a big deal especially if the image ratio is similar to 1:1, but as you get bigger in format, cropping changes things a big deal, and dedicated 1:1 ratio cameras are just produce fabulous photographs.
Nah. You are wrong. It has nothing to do with real estate and everything got do with visualizing in the format you want to shoot.
I too miss this feature a great deal. I used extensively (mostly in black and white, and in an attempt to mimic your style Kirk, I have to admit it !) on my late Panny GX-1 and truly enjoyed it immensely. The square is a very natural format for me really impoves my composition and boost my whole inspiration. Maybe we can hope it's added on some future Sony cameras...
I would like a square sensor of say 36 megapixels, with a camera button to select cropping mode of square, portrait or landscape (or 4:3, 3:2, 5:4 for good measure) which would be shown in EVF. Now that increasing pixel count is now longer as important,the loss of unused pixels would be outweighed by choice of format and avoiding the need to rotate the camera.
And when shooting cropped, it would be nice if the full square image was always saved in the raw file, allowing software to recover the cropped area if the original framing choice was too tight.
Reminds me when there were rumors about 36x36 camera from Sony. Wish they made it, with ability to crop to various aspect ratios (like Panasonic GH1 and GH2). With EVF, it would be pretty amazing.. And maybe ability to use full size of sensor with some medium format lens as a bonus. Plus you can change from horizontal 3:2 to vertical just with flick of switch..
Here's what I'd like from Sony: Let me dial in a square shooting mode so that my viewfinder shows a square crop of the image so I can compose it and shoot it. However, don't throw away the pixels outside of the crop just in case I like the 3:2 version later on in post-processing.
The Fuji X-E1 has square crop too.
My tiny little Canon Elph has a 1:1 mode. Nice, especially for a very inexpensive shirt-pocket camera.
The 1:1 ratio is something I really like about a camera and to my surprise Sony has included it in rx100 m2....so why not adding it in my nex camera?
I recently started using the 1:1 on my E-M5 and like it a lot. Definitely isolates some subjects & more prominent, where the 3:2 I'm use to has too much unneeded sides space. Cropping the 3:2 afterwards is different thought process than composing with 1:1.
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