Should I stick with 6 x 6 and work hard to ompose in the viewfinder in a very loose way, or go for the 6 x 7 format and compose everything in the viewfinder ?

-- clive Rose (clive@borealis.com), October 19, 1997

Answers

So what is wrong with a square composition? Or is there something inherently more 'worthy' or 'artistic' about a rectangle? If so, is a 35mm or 6x7 or 4x5 or 5x6 or 11x14 or some specific one the 'right one'? Print whatever size looks good to you just as long as the technical quality is excellent. It is your vision, not ours, that you are trying to express. No matter what format you choose there will always be those to tell you something else is better. That has been the way of the world since the first guy got married & met the first hooker. What you have will work fine unless your personal preferences favor the 6x7. How you crop is your decision.

-- Dan Smith (shooter@brigham.net), October 20, 1997.

6x6

If you are satisfied with quality of your cropped prints then I see no need to buy another camera. If you are using a waist-level finder you could easily outline, with drafting tape, the border of the cropped print and block off the rest of the screen. I'm not sure if this works with a prism finder but it sure would be a cheaper alternative.

-- Andy Laycock (pbrlab@unixg.ubc.ca), October 21, 1997.

There are two schools of thought. 1)Thou shalt not crop. Use 6x7 and compose for the full frame

2)Thou shalt crop. Use 6x6 and compose for both vertical & horizontal cropping.

What you do is what you do.

-- Kevin Paul (kpm927@aol.com), October 30, 1997.

6x6 vs ?

You know, I look at my photographs, and not a one of them is square. Using 6x6 for me would be a waste of negative space. (I use 6x7 -- see my site at http://www.sirius.com/~looknsee/home.htm

-- Jon (looknsee@sirius.com), November 03, 1997.

Many of my best images are square. In fact, sometimes I even crop my 35mm photos square so that people think I'm still a serious photographer carting around a 6x6 SLR. I also like discovering good compositions on the light table months or years later, something that doesn't seem to happen with rectangular images.

Another thing I like about 6x6 is composing in a waist-level viewfinder. It seems to help for some reason.

-- Philip Greenspun (philg@mit.edu), December 07, 1997.

Response to 6 X 6

I find the 6 X 6 very easy to use. If the square view is difficult to compse in consider making a mask and puting it over the ground glass. Or as I did, draw lines on the ground glass.

-- John Schulz (johnschulz@mindspring.com), December 28, 1997.

Either you like the square or you don't. I don't. Either you crop or you don't. I don't. Therefore, 6x6 is pretty much of a waste for me, despite the fact that there are some great 6x6 cameras on the market.

-- Peter Hughes (ravenart@redshift.com), January 13, 1998.

Response to 6x6 versus other formats.

What a deep subject this is??? Why even the consideraton? Maybe I've got it all wrong but it seems to me that it's just somuch easier to have a square format, no tipping of camera, no need for tripod head (most of the time) just a bowl. Free's up one to consider the finer point of masking up later. All other options are either heavy,clumsy or both. 35mm aside, then, to me the above still applies.

But then I'm just an old dinasore.

-- Greg Pratt (gregpam@ozemail.com.au), October 20, 2000.

A number of years ago I switched from 645 to 6x6. For about the first year of shooting, I seemed to crop everything. Then I noticed that for some strange reason, nothing needed cropping. My eye had made the transition. Now rectangular seems strange in my own images, not however, when I look at the work of other photographers.

-- Jim Steele (jdsteele@goibsmail.com), October 27, 2000.