I want a DOMAR sensor 7 October 2018

One of the most remarkable things about the new crop of full frame mirrorless interchangeable lens cameras (FFMILC) announced at this years Photokina has been the persistence of the 100 year old 24x36mm imaging sensor size.

The makers of these cameras want you to believe that they have brought forth a revolution in photography. Nonsense. At best we are witnessing a process of evolution.  

Even the otherwise avant garde Zeiss ZX1 uses this sensor, presumably because that is all they could get from Sony, probably the maker of the sensor and possibly the camera.

But if any camera maker was to ask me what kind of sensor I actually want  I would say “DOMAR”  

That is the acronym of “dual orientation multi aspect ratio.”

Here is the thing: I do not understand why 18 years into the 21st Century photographers still have to turn their camera over to shoot portrait orientation.

I want a camera which I hold always in the same position, corresponding to landscape orientation with most modern digital models.

I want a camera in which I can easily and quickly, by turning a dial or lens ring or sliding a lever, change from landscape to portrait orientation and from 1:1 to 5:4 to 4:3 to 3:1 to 16:9 aspect ratio while looking through the viewfinder and without having to move the camera at all.

How might this be achieved ?

Consider that a camera lens projects a circular image onto the focal plane.  No camera known to me fully utilises this.

But a circular sensor the same size as the image circle of the lens could be a DOMAR.

Like this:

If there are technical problems manufacturing a circular sensor the DOMAR concept could be achieved with a square sensor.  The image circle of the lens is smaller than the diagonal of the sensor.  There is no need to flip the camera over for portrait orientation and multi aspect ratio capability is readily achieved in either landscape or portrait orientation.

Either of these DOMAR sensors would probably fit best into a camera with a fixed lens, there being no discrete lens mount to interfere with the DOMAR implementation.

Combine a DOMAR sensor with a full global shutter and we might be seeing something a bit more revolutionary. These are features which really would benefit camera users.