Why not square?

[Mbnmac]

I would think that the standard rectangular landscape position matches closely how my actual vision works?

As in, I see more on the sides than up and down (peripheral vision) and thus creates a rectangular viewing area.

As photography tries to capture what the artist's eye sees and allows viewers to see the same image, would having it square not be too awkward for viewing?

This is actually the answer and why widescreen is now the thing to have, simply put YOU see landscape, so the natural view to us is a widesreen one

 

[bigtwinky]

Do I win a prize?

 

[Antithesis]

Why isn't it a triangle? Think of the possibilities!

But seriously, I think it's just following the 35mm film tradition in the 2:3 ratio for the sake of continuity. I doubt anyone could really point out an actual reason why it's this way, other than that someone just sort of did it and it caught on, standards were made and it just stayed that way.

 

[pez]

Why not shoot a square image, and then crop it to a rectangle in PP? That way orientation of the camera would be less important.

Sort of a photographic shotgun...

 

[Garbz]

Here's a thought. How many times do you look up. No I mean think about it. You're driving down the road you look ahead, left and right. You're walking through a city (a city you know, and look looking up saying wow look at the tall buildings), what do you do you look left and right. You will find if you think about your day you spend most of your time looking side to side.

Another thing look at your eyes. Look as far left and then as far right as possible. You can nearly see around behind you probably a good 230+degrees , now look up and down you'll find you can't even look straight up or down without having to move your head.

Humans have a natural deposition towards scanning across a picture. The photo frame, reflects that. The landscape panoramas on my wall reflect that. The fact that a portrait nature shot looks original and quirky reflects that. The TV argument is stupid. Our screens aren't 16:10 because of LCD, our screens are 16:10 because that's how we want to see life, and LCD just made possible in our homes what we have seen in the movies for years.

Why not make a square frame? It sucks in my opinion. I have a Holga. I shot one roll of film with the square adapter in it before I removed it in favour of the 4x5 frames. The pictures were so unnatural.

 

[bigtwinky]

Here's a thought. How many times do you look up. No I mean think about it. You're driving down the road you look ahead, left and right. You're walking through a city (a city you know, and look looking up saying wow look at the tall buildings), what do you do you look left and right. You will find if you think about your day you spend most of your time looking side to side.

Funny side story about humans looking up. I lay on a chair for 5 hours getting tattooed at a local place. They had put some posters and what not on the ceiling for people to stare at / decorations. In the room was the artist, the shop hand, my wife and myself. I passed a comment on one of the cool images I had been staring at for 5 mins.

Everyone looked up and the shop hand said that he had been working there for 8 months and had never noticed that on the ceiling.

My wife, who I like to refer to as a vault of useless information, quickly jumped in by some fact that as humans, we have never really had any predators who would come to us from the sky, they always came from the ground. So as we evolved, we never paid that much attention to what was up, more on what was in front.

/end side story

 

[Actor]

Do you have square computer monitor, or a square TV? These might be a few other influences on the shape of camera sensors.

LOL this argument DOES NOT work. Computer monitors have been square since the beginning, as well as TV's. However this changed with the advent of the LCD.

Sorry, but fail.:thumbdown:

I've never seen a 1:1 TV or computer monitor, where do you buy your electronics?

So you fail? (I'm not 12 so I'm doubt I'm using this right)

The actual NTSC standard of 525 lines is for a square format, but from the beginning TV stations and manufacturers have, for various reasons, opted to crop the image down to 4:3 , making use of only 480 to 500 lines. I think the "academy standard" of 4:3 that the movie industry used prior to 1953 was a big influence. I think they also had technical problems early on with distortion of lines near the top and bottom of the image.

If you've ever seen an old TV that has a vertical sync control you know that you can get the image to roll. When the image rolls you see a black bar between the images. That black bar is the unused lines that have been cropped out of the image.

 

[TiCoyote]

My wife, who I like to refer to as a vault of useless information, quickly jumped in by some fact that as humans, we have never really had any predators who would come to us from the sky, they always came from the ground.

/end side story

Oh yeah? What about Mothra?

 

[bigtwinky]

ROFL!

There are exceptions to every rule!

:lmao:

 

[PHILLIP MAC]

Thanks for the info Derrel.

I think a lot of other people missed what I was trying to say. Why not shoot a square image, and then crop it to a rectangle in PP? That way orientation of the camera would be less important.

Sorry I used to work a lot with 6x6 Hasselblad and you had to make up your mind when shooting, if it was upright or landscape to get good composition. I was the happiest man alive when I changed to the Mamiya RB 67

 

[Village Idiot]

Do you have square computer monitor, or a square TV? These might be a few other influences on the shape of camera sensors.

LOL this argument DOES NOT work. Computer monitors have been square since the beginning, as well as TV's. However this changed with the advent of the LCD.

Sorry, but fail.:thumbdown:

I've never seen a 1:1 TV or computer monitor, where do you buy your electronics?

So you fail? (I'm not 12 so I'm doubt I'm using this right)

ROFLcopter WTF BBQ PW3D!!!

 

[SrBiscuit]

lolz.

 

[Garbz]

I think a lot of other people missed what I was trying to say. Why not shoot a square image, and then crop it to a rectangle in PP? That way orientation of the camera would be less important.

Missed this post. Here's something to consider. This very forum is full of people who think that they shouldn't shoot RAW because it takes longer for them to import the files and save the JPEGs on the computer. You're now asking consumers to post process every image they take?

This would only fly in the studio world, or for people who care about the photo rather than the hobby of photography. Those people are few and far between. Case in point our local photo club went to Hells Gate. I came home with 40 pictures, a few of the other guys filled up their memory card with 300+ images, and one of our guys took 2 pictures on a large format view camera after working a good 20 min finding exactly the right viewpoint.

 

[Early]

Thanks for the info Derrel.

I think a lot of other people missed what I was trying to say. Why not shoot a square image, and then crop it to a rectangle in PP? That way orientation of the camera would be less important.

Sorry I used to work a lot with 6x6 Hasselblad and you had to make up your mind when shooting, if it was upright or landscape to get good composition. I was the happiest man alive when I changed to the Mamiya RB 67

I've been wondering this myself, since 35 mm lenses will cover 36mmX36mm. And there is really no need to crop if you can compose a shot without doing so.

PS I don't know what not having a square TV or monitor has to do with it. How do you view vertical shots?

 

[Buckster]

I think a lot of other people missed what I was trying to say. Why not shoot a square image, and then crop it to a rectangle in PP? That way orientation of the camera would be less important.

Missed this post. Here's something to consider. This very forum is full of people who think that they shouldn't shoot RAW because it takes longer for them to import the files and save the JPEGs on the computer. You're now asking consumers to post process every image they take?

That's what comes to mind when I think about it...

I've got to crop EVERY photo, all in order to save the incredibly tiny amount of work of turning the camera for the occasional portrait shot?

No thanks.