No digital photo camera produces the beautiful square image format out of the box. Even the newest MF Digital Backs produce rectangle images. The difference between those worlds is that all Full-Frame or APS-C Format DSLR`s have the 3:2 image format and  MF Digital Backs/Cameras, like Hasselblad, PhaseOne or Leaf or capture the 4:3 image format.  This is due to the old film/slide format of 36mm x 24mm (for SLR`s) and 60mm x 45mm (for MF Cameras). So the old image formats from the 20th century went nearly 1:1 into the digital cameras.

The beautiful, classical 60mm x 60mm MF Format was dropped in the evolution of digital cameras as there is unfortunatly no “square digital sensor” available in the market. So cropping is as of today the only way to get the beautiful square format. And this has to be done on your computer after the image is already captured. I really would like to see a kind of viewfinder or focus-screen addition for Canon, Nikon, Sony, Leica etc. or the MF camera bodies which shows me only a square (or at least the borders of a square) in the viewfinder. That would be so useful for the composition while shooting an image and I can`t imagine that this might be “rocket-science” to develop. If you know where to get such a viewfinder screen or another good solution to see “the square” while taking the photo drop my an e-mail.

In the meantime Lightroom, Photoshop or Phocus have to do the job after the shot. In my iStockphoto Portfolio you find nearly 700 Squares.

Squares – Square Format Photo Collection

And here are some examples out of the ‘people in a square’ collection: