I was out in the woods the other day taking pictures of the trees with Yamahito. As we were walking and talking I came up with this idea. At least I hope it was me, otherwise I owe him a drink.

Both our cameras have tilt sensors. When you take a portrait shot, the camera inserts a tag into the JPEG or RAW file telling whatever image processing program you use that this is the case and you don't need to rotate images when you post-process them. Nice.

The image is also rotated when you preview it on the LCD on the back of the camera. Nice also. It means that you don't need to keep twisting the camera then you look at a series of shots. Unfortunately it does mean that portrait shots now take up less space and show less detail on the landscape oriented LCD display on the back of the camera.

A camera incorporating 'Tilt Sensor for Playback' would use the same tilt sensor that it used to work out the orientation when you took the picture to rotate the image if you twist the camera during playback. Now you can use the whole of the LCD display to look at that portrait shot. There... that's better.
-- st3f, Sep 06 2005

Review of the IXUS 55 http://www.dpreview...reviews/canonsd450/
from dpreview.com [st3f, May 26 2006]

This is how cameras used to work before they got tilt-sensitive (display all photos the way they were taken). Given that it's doing something special to tilt the photo, what you really want is an option to switch the tilting off, rather than tilt it back again.

Anyway, don't you have a magnify option?

Soon enough, we'll have cameras that give their own slide shows on the wall.
-- DrCurry, Sep 06 2005


I have a magnify option. I have the ability to turn auto-rotation off.

What I want to do is use a photography feature of the camera to control the playback user interface which is... um... why I posted the idea rather than being content using the magnify option or turning auto-rotation off.
-- st3f, Sep 07 2005


This reminds me of an idea I saw a few years back for a large virtual display on small-screen PDAs - it used solid-state accelerometers to detect movement of the display device, and allowed you to move a small zoomed "window" over a larger image simply by moving the PDA - don't know if it coped with rotation though. I'll try to find a link.
-- coprocephalous, Sep 07 2005


Someone here suggested round format a while back. In it's favour, it would notch up the format wars another notch.
-- wagster, Sep 07 2005


Might be fun to have to rewrite JPEG encoding using polar coordinates.
-- Worldgineer, Sep 07 2005


Ooh, that'd be a bear!
-- bristolz, Sep 07 2005


Doesn't PhotoShop have a filter for that already?
-- DrCurry, Sep 07 2005


*** Idea Baked ***
In Feb 2006 dpreview.com reviewed the Canon IXUS 55 (aka Canon PowerShot SD450 Digital ELPH) which has this feature. I have no idea if this is the first camera to incorporate the idea but it's the first I've seen of it.

From dpreview.com (linked), "New features include [...] a nifty orientation sensor that rotates the display of images as you turn the camera round in playback mode..."
-- st3f, May 26 2006



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