<p>Hi Bob,<br>
I have nothing against shooting squares if that's your cup of tea but the reality is it's a dead format. Personally, after shooting square format Hasselblads for over 40 years, I think the native square format's real advantage was moving the choice of deciding between a vertical and a horizontal composition from a pre-shooting decision to a post-shooting decision. It meant you saved seconds deciding between deciding on which of the two arrangements to use before shooting, made for sturdier, more balance camera tripod mounting, and eliminated the need for the agonizingly slow working swing flash brackets on rectangular format cameras. But the simple truth is, a 6X7 RZ blew the 6X6 (well 56X56 mm actually) blew the Hasse out of the water when it came to image quality.</p>
<p>But, as I said above, if that's your cup of tea it's not really that hard to crop to a square in the digital age...except then you'll find it hard to fill the frame for an art director (or other client) for either the printed page or the horizontal monitor...so you're saying you'll give up filling the frame on both primary medias (traditional print work and monitors/tablets/TVs/Kindles/Pads/etc) just because you like the static square. If that's the case (and you're not being argumentative just for the sake of being argumentative) then, crop your images to a square format and go for it. As for the popularity of low-res Instagram photos, the quality of the images produced when published there can just as easily be produced using a mediocre phone camera.</p>
<p>Regardless, at this point in time, with the demise of every square format native solution, the square format has become a niche format at best. Apologies for my disagreement with you on this but then again, it's just my opinion.</p>
<p>Thanks for your comment.<br>
Steve<br>
steve@stevesint.com</p>
<p>Bob H wrote:<br>
Very nice, but what about the square format? It is popular with instagram and the like, kind of sad that there are few native square options around. If well composed can really set you apart from the run of the mill.</p><div></div>