Why rectangular?

[paulr]

Many of the basic designs of the camera come from pictorial conventions we're so accustomed to that we don't question anymore (with all due respect to the OP, who is questioning them
A rectangular frame is just one of those conventions. So are view camera movements. We tend to think that our view camera rules of keeping vertical lines parallel while letting horizontal ones converge are based on physics or the physiology of our eyes. But they're based on a pictorial convention that was arrived at through debate and trial and error during the Rennaissance. Artists tried all kinds of ways to depict 3 dimensions on a flat plane. Other methods had their advocates, but Alberti and Columbus won, and people eventually just accepted their conclusions. And now cameras are designed with their rules as a given.

[Tin Can]

Still has demarcation. What I want may be impossible. Perhaps a form of hologram where object float without backdrop edge.

Oblong? http://www.digoliardi.net/bosse_winona_1892.png

[Vaughn]

I blame it on the painters -- why did they use rectangular canvas/frames?

[gleaf]

Once paper became a standardized commercial size and shape then the products cut from a standard industrial paper sheet became appropriately shaped to eliminate and or minimize waste. 17 x 22 inches strikes my memory as being the standard sheet for commercial paper.

[DrTang]

I *think* it might have been..or still is 34x44

from which 22x34 comes...then 17x22...11x17 and finally 8.5x11

[Heroique]

Golden ratio = 1.618 (rounded)

Ratios of “common” film sizes:

3:2 & 9:6 = 1.5
7:6 = 1.17 (rounded)
5:4 & 10:8 = 1.25
7:5 = 1.4
14:11 = 1.27 (rounded)

Of these common aspect ratios, 3:2 looks closest to the golden ratio.

Is it "nature" why so many people "like" 3:2 cropping, or is it "nurture"?

[Bob Salomon]

Let's see:

Super Slides = 4x4cm
Rollei/Hassy = 6x6 cm
shot lots of 5x5" aerial roll film in the USAF as well as 10 x 10"

Not all are rectangular. But most view cameras are.

[Roger Cole]

Let's see:

Super Slides = 4x4cm
Rollei/Hassy = 6x6 cm
shot lots of 5x5" aerial roll film in the USAF as well as 10 x 10"

Not all are rectangular. But most view cameras are.

Those are rectangular Bob.

Oh, they're square, but a square is a rectangle. All squares are rectangles but not all rectangles are squares.

I get what you are saying because we usually refer to camera formats as square versus rectangular, but I think what the OP is questioning is the whole concept of "rectangle" in the most liberal sense of having four straight sides at right angles versus, say, ovals, round images, trapezoids, triangles or any of the geometric shapes with more than four sides or whatever.

[Jac@stafford.net]

There is an aesthetic presumption in cultures. An Old Asian view is that certain artworks are like a scroll with only the horizontal limits recognized, the vertical cognitively dissolving.

[Tin Can]

+1

There is an aesthetic presumption in cultures. An Old Asian view is that certain artworks are like a scroll with only the horizontal limits recognized, the vertical cognitively dissolving.