How Does Sensor Size Affect Your Digital Photography
By: OpenDP -
Digital sensor is an important matter of consideration for a digital
camera owner. The quality of the photography depends on the size
of the sensor. The larger the sensor the better will be the quality
of the photograph. This fact plays a vital role in choosing the
perfect digital camera.
The size of the sensor affects digital photography
The final image is an outcome of the various pixels that are arranged
by the sensor of the camera. Soon after clicking on the shutter
button, the pixels start to accumulate the photons in a cavity.
After completion of exposure, camera confines those pixels and find
out the number of photons that are attached to each other. Now these
photons are compiled in accordance with the levels of intensity.
But all these can only give you a colorless image. There are some
filters on the cavities that release the specific color of light
into those cavities. All the contemporary digital cameras are unable
to capture all the three primary colors. Only one of the three primary
colors gets into each cavity. Thus the camera needs to estimate
the remaining two colors to get the adequate information about all
the three colors at every pixel.
Bayer array is one of the commonest color filters used in digital
cameras and passes on all the information about different primary
colors to each pixel. Higher or lower resolution of photograph depends
on the array.
In a very precise meaning a sensor is a silicon semiconductor meant
for acquiring photons and converting them into electron. The size
of the sensor is, perhaps, the second most important thing just
after the quantity of mega pixels. Though the size of the sensor
has a huge range, generally it is of two basic categories. The sensor
of DSLRs comes under the range of 24x16mm to 36x24mm, but it remains
of the range of 8x6mm in the case of a consumer camera. The size
of the sensor affects the performance of the camera and decides
the intensity of sensor produced noise.
Noise, actually, worsen the images of digital camera. If the sensor
is smaller than actual requirement, then the camera is unable to
capture the full view of the image. Fisheye lens can actually compensate
this to some extent. But one, who really does not want to compromise
with the quality of the image, should only go for the camera having
adequate size of sensor. In case the sensor is small, centre of
the lens captures the image.
Since maximum portion of the image passes through the centre of
the lens, quality of the lens becomes very important factor to consider.
The quantity of light that reaches into the pixel is very less.
Therefore useful image is only available after proper enlargement
of the same.
There is a relation between sensor and crop factor. In this case,
because of limited size, while using 35mm lens, the sensor crop
out the inferior quality portion of the image. This is simply because
the fact that the image passes through the centre of the lens in
case of smaller sensor and the image remains sharpest at that position.
The use of lens becomes a meaningless practice if the sensor of
the camera is undersized. But a 2/3 or even size can give optimum
output if it is used with a 35mm lens.
In upshot, it can be concluded that finding out a pixel pitch of
a given sensor, while buying a digital camera can be tricky. However,
one can seek the help of certain review sites that provide the information
about recent models including their sensors.
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