DSLRUsers.com

I'm a Canon 350D user and it has a sensor that senses if the camera is held in vertical orientation and it produces vertical images if it is so. I got a set of images from a friend taken with his Nikon 70 and the vertical images are not rotated by the camera. Is the vertical sensor now a fairly common thing in newer cameras or only a few cameras have got it.

I am thinking of buying a Fuji F31fd P&S camera. Anyone happens to know if it has a sensor like this?

Actually the D70 does have an orientation sensor. There is a menu option to rotate the images when displaying them on the camera LCD (when appropriate) - I think it's called "Rotate Tall".

The camera doesn't actually rotate the image before saving, instead it adds orientation tags to every image. Many image viewers understand the orientation tag and will automatically display the image the right way up.

All the DSLRs I've seen have orientation sensors. However, I'm not sure if the Fuji P&S does.

What xorl said.

When you view rotated images on the camera's lcd, they are displayed smaller to fit within the confines of the lcd (this is true of all so-equipped cameras), and so many users choose to not avail themselves of this feature.

I think on some cameras it's actually implemented in two phases - one rotates the image on the camera's display, and the other sets the tag for vertical image display on your computer.

I think on some cameras it's actually implemented in two phases - one rotates the image on the camera's display, and the other sets the tag for vertical image display on your computer.

The D200 does this, but you need to set the tag first. The "Rotate image in Viewer" setting reads the tag. The Set Tag option is called "AutoImageRotation" in the Spanner (SetUp) menu. The Display option is called "RotateTall" in the Play menu

The D70 is also a two stage setting "RotateImage" in the spanner and "RotateTall" in the playback menu.On this camera I think setting RotateTall on also turns on RotateImage, as I only recall setting one of these.

Does anyone make a camera where the sensor detects upside down? The ones I've tried all seem to be L-straight-R so when I have the camera upside down it's anyone's guess what orientation the image will be marked with.

In case you're wondering, this happens a lot once you get past the "eye on viewfinder" stage, it's often easier to hold the camera upside down at full stretch to get that extra few cm of reach.

Looks like 2 stage setting is the way to go. Have just checked my 350D. It's a one stage setting. What you see on the viewer is what is tagged on the image.

Also checked the setting if the camera is upside down. You just get upside down image. Maybe there is no parameter in the file format specification to tag upside down image?

Finally bought a Fuji F31fd. No auto detect of vertical format. The manual warns about rotating the picture in the camera. "Multiple rotation of image may degrade the picture quality." Why is this? since we are only changing a flag.

If the images are stored as jpg, and the camera is storing the images as shown, rather than as shot + flag, then constant saving of the compressed jpg file would lead to image degradation.

That would be my guess.

capture NX senses the vertical orientation

when you save to JPG from NEF it saves it correctly orientated.

Had more time to play with the Fujifilm FinePix F31fd. The vertical tag it uses is not standard. If I change it, I can see the change in the metadata in standard viewer and it displays correctly using the Fuji FinePixViewer. However, the same image will not display with the right orientation in photoshop or Windows Picture and Fax viewer. If I rotate the image with Windows Picture and Fax viewer, it will display incorrectly in Fuji FinePixViewer. It looks like Fuji has decided to be different. I cannot understand why one would something like this. It's just so annoying.