alt Hacker News> What are the arguments for this? It would seem easier for everyone to rotate and then store exif for the original rotation if necessary.
Performance. Rotation during rendering is often free, whereas the camera would need an intermediate buffer + copy if it's unable to change the way it samples from the sensor itself.
Given that rotation sensors have been standard equipment on most cameras (AKA phones) for many years now, I would expect pixel-reordering to be built into supporting ASICs and to impose negligible performance penalties.