Why not round photo's?

[Guest Ming Rider]

Advertisement (gone after registration)

Here's a daft question that on reflection may not be so daft.

 

If the eye is round and lenses are round, why not have round photo's? Surely you lose a large chunk of the image generated by the lens?

 

Discuss

[Advertisement]

The Leica Q3 is available for pre-order at B&H Photo Video and Adorama

[earleygallery]

Well, nothing to stop you from making round images!

 

Someone here floated the idea of a round digital sensor, so that one could crop a square or rectangular image however one wished.

 

Why are images traditionally square/rectangular? I guess it's a combination of reasons, aesthetics, compositionally easier perhaps, and of course film formats.

[adli]

With film, it made sense to have square or rectangular photo in order to utilise the film real estate the most. With a curtain shutter, square or rectangular photos also makes most sense as the shutter leaves a footprint that matches this geometry.

 

However, when I look at family photos from the beginning of the 20th century, many of them actually are in oval frames. Don't know the reason for this?

[vertekijker]

Maybe it grew historically, from paintings and drawings being mostly rectangular?

----------------

Frans

[juergen]

If photos were round, you could not mount your prints in your photo album with photo corners.

 

Juergen

[adan]

Actually, the Kodak No. 1 (first roll-film camera) DID take circular images - Kodak No.1 Circular Snapshots - a set on Flickr

 

Otherwise, it has mostly been a question of materials handling. Straight edges are easier to cut, whether the material is wood for the understructure of canvases, or canvas itself, or metal/glass photo plates, or silicon wafers (which, oddly enough, are "grown" as cylinders and sliced as circular wafers - before being cut up into rectangular "chips" (with some waste) - Monocrystalline silicon - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wafer_(electronics)

 

Mass-volume printing presses run paper off rolls - easy enough to print round pictures on them, but the paper in the corners is wasted.

 

With frescos or other "architectural" images (mosaics), the artist can choose (or, more likely - have chosen for her by the architect) any shape on the wall or ceiling as the "canvas": http://i766.photobucket.com/albums/xx306/ducksquare/goldenersaal3.jpg

 

But so long as it is much easier to cut photo paper or other materials with straight edges - a circular image will use the lens more efficiently, but a rectangular image will use the paper more efficiently.

 

Alternatively, one could say that the "circular" image produced by a lens is itself simply an artifact of convenience - it is easier to grind lenses as segments of a sphere than from rectangular pieces of glass. Even if one knows from the beginning one will want a rectangular image from that lens.

 

http://2000clicks.com/MathHelp/PuzzleTwoCirclesAndSphereAnswer.aspx

http://www.blistermicroscope.com/images/236-lens-grinding-drawing.jpg

[pico]

Advertisement (gone after registration)

 

Henry Bosse made oval photographs, exclusively.

 

(The above is Public Domain - Pictured are two of the bridges of my home city. Part of the bridge in the background is still there.)

 

 

Here is the Wiki on Henry Bosse.

[stunsworth]

Assuming that the images would be produced on roll film of some kind, around 22% of the emulsion would be wasted as it would fall outside of the circle.

[pop]

Assuming that the images would be produced on roll film of some kind, around 22% of the emulsion would be wasted as it would fall outside of the circle.

 

I rather think that I have spent so far more on lenses than on emulsion. Hence, the loss of usable image area might surpass the loss for wasted emulsion and chemicals. Who knows?

[elgenper]

Assuming that the images would be produced on roll film of some kind, around 22% of the emulsion would be wasted as it would fall outside of the circle.

 

Well, when using 24 mm of a 35 mm wide film, we waste(d) over 30 percent, just to put sprocket holes in....

[stunsworth]

Well, when using 24 mm of a 35 mm wide film, we waste(d) over 30 percent, just to put sprocket holes in....

 

So with circular photographes on 35mm film we'd be wasting over 50% of the film <grin>

[Michael Geschlecht]

Hello Everybody,

 

Could be the round & oval photos of 100 or more years ago were developed to deal w/ the image fall off in the corners & the edges of some early lenses.

 

Just like 45 degrees more or less may have been chosen as a normal lens because it was the widest lens that could be made reasoably sharp before the development of wide angle lenses equivalent in resoloution, contrast, etc to longer focal lengths.

 

Best Regards,

 

Michael

[pop]

It's perfectly possible that photographers salvaged the round "inner" part of the image. I also seem to recall that at the early times, lens design had yet to proceed to a stage where a lens could cast an image which covered all of the plate.

 

On the other side, it just could have been a matter of aesthetics. There used to be artistically vignetted images with circular or oval masks or even with masks bordered by floral or herbal designs and whatnot.

 

But then, it's perfectly possible that the were somehow related by the photographers making art out of the idiosyncrasies of their equipment.

[Michael Geschlecht]

Hello Philipp,

 

Historically industry often first invents something & then creates the need in peoples minds/lives in order to market it.

 

More likely there were manufacturing constraints which were justified w/ socially acceptable rationalizations such as style etc. The world in the sense of development & dissemination of new technology is often the reverse of the general view that people want/need & industry produces.

 

Often things are first invented limitations included then the resultant whatever is rationalized and sent out to the world @ large warts & all.

 

Best Regards,

 

Michael

[pico]

[...] I also seem to recall that at the early times, lens design had yet to proceed to a stage where a lens could cast an image which covered all of the plate.

 

Not likely. Most lenses did cover the plate because plates were made in very many sizes. I use lenses from 1865 and they cover very well. And some were very fast, for example 500mm f/5 !

[NZDavid]

The reason is not so much technical as Pop and others speculate, but aesthetic. The golden mean, invented by the ancient Greeks, is still the most harmonious and pleasing proportion for an image.

[cheewai_m6]

i think eveyrone has a point, but the true answer to this question was already answered.

 

If photos were round, you could not mount your prints in your photo album with photo corners.

 

imagine all the wasted photo corners in the world. the greenies would NEVER shut up about them.

[pico]

The reason is not so much technical as Pop and others speculate, but aesthetic. The golden mean, invented by the ancient Greeks, is still the most harmonious and pleasing proportion for an image.

 

Interesting speculation! The M8 sensor size is very close to the Golden Ratio ϕ

(phi).

 

M8 and ϕ, 1:.666 and 1:618, respectively

[Advertisement]

Hallo,

Look here: Interesting Leica gear

[adli]

Interesting speculation! The M8 sensor size is very close to the Golden Ratio ϕ

(phi).

 

M8 and ϕ, 1:.666 and 1:618, respectively

 

Where did you get that ratio from? The M8 har a 2:3 ratio sensor, as do most cameras (not medium/large format though).

[pop]

Where did you get that ratio from? The M8 har a 2:3 ratio sensor, as do most cameras (not medium/large format though).

 

2/3 = 0.666....

1/PHI ~0.618