Talk:Image sensor format
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[edit] Do we need another page?
There's lots on this topic already in other places, but the organisation needs some improvement, and in some cases so does the phrasing and even the accuracy. And, most articles on particular camera models don't link to any of it in a particularly helpful way. And it's a hot topic... I often get asked "I've just bought a digital SLR and some lenses from the same manufacturer who made my 35mm gear, and the old (or new) lenses seem to fit the new (or old) camera but they don't work very well together" or "the lens mounts look the same and the shop said they'd be fine but they've been designed so they don't actually fit" or similar.
After a lot of wrangling, I decided that IMO there's a separate, encyclopedic topic here that's not covered by the existing crop factor article and the section at Digital photography#Sensor size and angle of view. I hope this article will expand at least to a comprehensive list of formats, similar to the film format article, with a layman-accessible but technically accurate definition of the topic.
- I'm not so sure I'm happy with the article myself, but I'm trying to at least make it correct. It might make sense to merge with crop factor in one direction or the other, and to also merge in the info from the camera article, and maybe expand to cover other effects than just the first-order angel-of-view thing. Sensor format is certainly a key parameter in digital cameras, not just for how a lens works on it. Dicklyon 04:41, 7 April 2007 (UTC)
What to name it? There doesn't seem to be a standard term. The phrase image sensor format seems mainly used by Four Thirds System vendors and enthusiasts according to Google, and describes the topic most accurately IMO. Andrewa 03:23, 7 April 2007 (UTC)
- The term sensor format as in "1/3- and 1/2-inch sensor format cameras" was in use in 1993 [1] way before the 4/3 thing. They chose to use 4/3-inch format as well as 4:3 aspect ratio, and based their name on that coincidence. Going back to 1978 [2] I find "vidicon cameras use a one inch format." The terminological trend seems compatible with the current title. Dicklyon 04:15, 7 April 2007 (UTC)
[edit] Original research
It seems to me that this page simply creates a term that isn't used widely - and isn't particularly accurate. There are a huge number of different image sensors out there - just as there are a huge number of differently sized cars. Doesn't mean there has to be a wiki page titled "car formats". Do you start to mention larger sensors used on medium format cameras, rangefinder formats, point and shoot sensors, superzooms? Of course people have trouble deciphering terms used in emerging technology, unfortunately wiki isn't the place to develop the terms. They should be already well established, with established definitions in reliable secondary sources. --Hmette 06:55, 7 April 2007 (UTC)
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- A further thought... there is some coverage of this topic on the digital photography page that is probably a better place to keep it. From a quick read of that page, some of the material is becoming quite dated also and could use more input. --Hmette 06:55, 7 April 2007 (UTC)
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- The table in that article has a bit of original research in it; the referenced source shows the diagonal, which is pretty standard, but the table there omits that and shows the area. And it adds the column "back" with no explanation. I made a better one, I think. Dicklyon 04:26, 9 April 2007 (UTC)
- I think that representing the size of the sensor by the area rather than the diagonal is a rather trivial calculation to be considered WP:OR. It's just presenting the same information in a different form... rephrasing mathematically rather than verbally. We rephrase things all the time without calling it original research... in fact the GFDL often obliges us to! Andrewa 14:31, 9 April 2007 (UTC)
- The table in that article has a bit of original research in it; the referenced source shows the diagonal, which is pretty standard, but the table there omits that and shows the area. And it adds the column "back" with no explanation. I made a better one, I think. Dicklyon 04:26, 9 April 2007 (UTC)
- There is indeed good material there, and there's already a link to it from this article.
- I agree that the terminology is a problem. I'll be quite happy if this article is merged, renamed or deleted, just so long as the information it contains is preserved in an accessible way. The motivation for creating it was quite simply that I wanted to refer someone to Wikipedia for information, and it wasn't easy to find it here. The information was here, but finding it was embarrassingly difficult, even for an old hand. Room for improvement. Which is what we're about, of course.
- However, the term wasn't created for or by this page, as you yourself admit above... it's not widely used (997 Google hits), but it is an existing term used for this particular topic, and I couldn't find another one. I'm very open to suggestions. Those few hits do include the official Olympus site and several others which I'd regard as reliable secondary sources.
- Or, we could expand the section at list of film formats, or just provide some better links to the information at digital photography. A refactor of some of the various stubs describing crop factor and similar terms would also be in order, and some standard links from the infobox used in articles on particular camera models are overdue. Lots of good options. Andrewa 01:46, 9 April 2007 (UTC)
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- A further thought... there is some coverage of this topic on the digital photography page that is probably a better place to keep it. From a quick read of that page, some of the material is becoming quite dated also and could use more input. --Hmette 06:55, 7 April 2007 (UTC)
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- I'm fascinated that you describe the term as not particularly accurate. The car analogy doesn't make a lot of sense - there's no discussion about standardisation of car formats so far as I know, and if there were then a term for these formats would probably arise, and then we could consider an article for it. Similarly, AFAIK there's no move to standardise these other aspects of camera design; If and when there is, we can and should document it.
- But yes, of course we can expand the article to include larger format sensors. That's what a stub is for! Andrewa 02:06, 9 April 2007 (UTC)
I find 42,600 google hits for "sensor format". With the redundant word "image" in there it's a lot less common, but that helps to clarify the topic, so I'd leave it. I proposed over at full-frame digital SLR that that article and crop factor ought to be merged into this one, since their topic is also all about sensor format. It's a term widely used in the industry, analogous to film format, and will help to unify a fragmented bunch of articles if we handle it right. And yes I would add the medium format sensors; not sure if any of those other things correspond to sensor formats. Sensors (and lenses to match) really are designed to a finite set of discrete formats, unlike cars. It's not O.R. Dicklyon 02:02, 9 April 2007 (UTC)
- That supports a move to sensor format, which I guess would answer some of the issues raised. But I'm not convinced there's a problem to solve. The claims that image sensor format is a new term I'm promoting are just not true. Andrewa 14:25, 9 April 2007 (UTC)
Image Sensor Format, Crop Factor, etc, all make sense to me, Ive heard/read them being used all over the net and in real life, wouldn't it be logical to state that crop factor and Digital photography#Sensor size and angle of view are the result of different Sensor Format? It might need to be stated in the Introduction of crop factor since it dose'nt explicitly do so. --58.110.131.179 (talk) 22:23, 18 November 2007 (UTC)
[edit] Video camera sensors
Shouldn't they be mentioned in here to? Kricke (talk) 00:49, 7 February 2008 (UTC)
