[mzpro5]

I have a friend who, though he doesn't own a digital camera (or even a computer) insists that there are 2 different "major formats" for digital cameras. "Like the difference between a Mac and PC" was his description. Comes from something he thought he saw on TecTV.

I mentioned different picture formats such as JPEG and TIFF but no that wasn't it. Optical vs. digital zoom, no not that. Types of memory storage? Nope. This caused a major argument over the holidays and everyone gathered at my house tried to explain to him he was mistaken. When he stopped by recently and I showed him my new Fuji S3000 the first comment he made was "I don't want to start another argument but which format is it" He is deadly serious and I may have over looked something, any thoughts?

[rextilleon]

Nope--you are right--He obviously has trouble letting go. If he is a friend it's best not to bring the subject up. Like our President, he doesn't have the courage to admit he was wrong.

[slipe]

35mm film was originally from movie film and they could get more film area by making it wider. So the settled on a 3:2 ratio. When digital came along the DSLR cameras that generally took the lenses from the 35mm SLRs stuck with the 3:2 format. The regular consumer market went to the same 4:3 ratio as a computer screen. It has pretty much stayed that way. DSLRs are mostly 3:2 and all of the others are mostly 4:3. There are some 4:3 cameras that will also give 3:2 by cropping off the top and bottom and there are even new cameras with the HD TV format, which it also gets by cropping off the top and bottom of a 4:3 image. There were a very few 3:2 non-DSLR digitals but they didn’t persist. All of the small sensors made for consumer cameras are in the 4:3 format today.

Your S3000 is the standard 4:3 format and your friend isn’t into this stuff as much as he thinks if he has to ask. If it isn’t DSLR it is 4:3 these days.