Questions tagged [sensor]
A sensor is the digital camera's equivalent to film. It contains millions of tiny light-detecting areas called photosites, which convert light into an electric charge. After exposing the sensor to light, this charge is read from each pixel and converted into a digital image.
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Is this a scratch or a smudge on the sensor?
There is this (rather discounted, but still expensive) Sony a7 III that someone is selling and it has this picture:
Supposedly it works "flawlessly", but to me the bit circled in blue looks ...
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Why don't cameras have dynamic sensors
A sensor could have different pixels reset at different time, according to its brightness. It would completely remove the problem of dynamic range, wouldn't it? If a pixel exposure becomes greater ...
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What is the source of color noise?
Many articles mention color (chroma) noise. However, I cannot find proper information what is the cause of this kind of noise.
It looks quite different than the luminance noise, so for this reason I ...
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How can a fixed-focus lens have a focus range of 0.5 meters to infinity?
I have a Mavic Air 1 drone and I was wondering how the camera of this drone can have a shooting range as large as 0.5 meters to infinity with a fixed focus?
Mavic Air 1 camera specs:
Parameter
Value
...
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How is the picture (image signal), acquired by the sensor, shown in a display?
Let's consider a CMOS sensor with N number of pixels. For the sake of simplicity, let's consider an hypothetical Black and White sensor. Each pixel catches the energy provided by the input luminance ...
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camera sensor size, crop factor and object "magnification"
I have been reading some things about photography and most make sense, with some exceptions.
About sensor sizes, I was reading this nice article where at some point, scrolling down, it says that with ...
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Why is the reflection of the sensor mount on the sensor having a chamfer
I always see the reflection on the camera sensor having a little chamfer:
But the plane in front of the sensor does not have this chamfer, the reflection should be a right angle if it's a mirror:
...
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Why do phone cameras have "oil painting" like effect on human skin?
I've long noticed that phone cameras have an oil painting like effect on human skin.
As phone cameras get better, the effect is less pronounced by it's still a significant difference from a bigger ...
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Could a practical sensor measure time until pixel reaches threshold? [closed]
A typical digital camera sensor operates by capturing the analog state of each pixel after it has been active for some period of time. If some pixels would saturated in less time than it takes other ...
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Why should we be interested at incident metering?
Everyone says that incident metering is clearly better than reflective metering because the first one measures the real light on the subject, and not that reflected by its (which depends on its ...
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Why are dedicated light meters supposed to be independent on the sensor?
As I have understood by this question, an exposure value of a certain scenario cought from a digital sensor (CCD or CMOS) results from:
the scenario luminance
the sensor sensitivity
the ISO, shutter ...
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Which is the link between a digital ISO value (e.g. 100) and the sensor sensitivity?
There are many questions about ISO (such as 1 and 2), but none of them answers my precise question. My doubt starts from the exposure formula (for instance let's consider it in linear scale):
My ...
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Why do photos with different settings produce different spots? [duplicate]
I have an issue with my Nikon D3500 camera which I do not understand. I can show it best using two photos I took with different settings. The lens I use is a kit lens which ranges from 18 to 105 mm.
...
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How does long exposure work on a digital camera?
I'm curious about long exposure photography and I keep taking sequences of long exposure photos. However, my mind stumbles on this question when I think about my phone camera sensor.
How does long ...
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Is it true that a camera sensor will never receive an RGB value of R 0 G 255 B 0?
I read this:
https://therefractedlight.blogspot.com/2010/09/imaginary-and-impossible-colors.html
"there are no green colors whatsoever which do not also stimulate your red or blue cells, or even ...
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How to fix Canon EOS 1200D flash release hook making a click click click?
My Canon EOS 1200D was working ok until, suddenly, it stopped showing the display.
People suggested to take out the SD CARD and BATTERY for some time. This was done. Now any activity on my part, ...
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Would spectral responses of camera pixels be more "raw", more compact and superior to ICC/DCP camera color profiles? If not, why not?
Background: I'm trying to understand the function of camera color profiles (for raw output) in terms of the hardware. I have found lots of web sites that explain the function of camera profiles from a ...
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What causes these squiggly lines in my photos and on my sensor?
(crop showing effected area)
Can anybody tell me what has happened to my sensor here? I can vaguely see this pattern on the sensor when I open the shutter and look at the sensor, but it doesn't look ...
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What does the focal length of a fisheye lens mean?
Say an ordinary lens, Sigma 30mm f1.4 for example, is designed for APS-C and thus produces images that have a 35mm-equivalence of 48mm.
But what about the fisheye lens?
From Wikipedia, it is said that ...
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Major color banding on some photos - Pentax k1 mark ii
I have been in Kenya shooting some properties and staff portraits for 2 weeks. Everything has been working as normal until yesterday when I imported my photos from the day and discovered some major ...
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How do sensors "focus" on the bottom of the lens (flange distance)?
I know that when a camera sensor is used with a lens there is a specific distance between the sensor and bottom of the lens (aka "Flange distance" or "flange focal distance") in a ...
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What is read noise?
I recently upgraded from a Nikon D750 to a Nikon Z6 II and came across this graph plotting the read noise (Y axis) against the ISO setting (X axis) of both cameras:
As you can see, there is a big ...
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Camera sensor and sun
I'm a new photographer and yesterday someone told me that I should never point my camera (I have a mirrorless camera) toward the sun as this can damage the sensor. I went back and checked and I saw ...
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Sensor pixel size "pixel area" any important?
Using this camera comparison tool i got pr
If you look at pixel pitch it shows 5.95 µm and 4.76 µm however for some reason difference they display is 25% when in reality its only 20%
What is "...
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Canon 600D - how to correct sensor tilt and level
I have a Canon EOS 600D which I have modified for astrophotography by replacing the stock UV/IR filter with a Baader BCF filter (this extends the spectral response to >656nm so that Hydrogen-alpha ...
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Why is an overexposured-area white?
From what I understand, camera sensor photosites have 'filters' on them so that each can receive only either red, blue or green light.
Example:
When there is an overexposure of only pure blue light, ...
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What is this grid-like pattern on the sky in photos?
Some photos of the sky taken on our Nikon D5100 have a diamond-like grid pattern. I'd like to know what may be the cause. The photo was taken in RAW and the pattern appears regardless whether it was ...
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Strange pattern on a sensor
I wanted to see if there're any stains on the sensor of my Canon 5D MK3 and I took this shot of a white surface shaking the camera with a slow shutter speed. I keep getting the same image with such a ...
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Can taking up-close photos of multiple candles stacked together damage my iPhone’s camera/camera sensors?
My brother took multiple up-close pictures of a stack of burning diyas (a type of candle); to the naked eyes, the candles looked very bright. Can such up-close photography damage my iPhone’s camera, ...
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What is a good explanation for clipping, how it occurs and when it is likely to happen?
Clipping causes a decrease in measured intensity when it's actually saturating. I haven't found a good source for explaining this, and when it should be looked out for, like under what expected ...
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Why is it not yet possible to adjust exposure *TIME* in post?
Or, more technically, why can't the values of photosites be read while exposing? As that would allow a camera to store versions of a RAW with varying exposure times ("subexposures" I'll call ...
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Random discolored pixel rows
I have recently discovered 5 instances of images where a single pixel row is discolored, kind of what you experience with hot pixels.
What I find weird about it is that if I look at the position of ...
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Capturing Lightning with Pi Camera - Hard purple lines in overexposed area
Can I fix the purple lines in this image in capture processing on my Pi HQ Camera?
When shooting long exposures at night, my Pi HQ Camera has purple line artefacts where the lightning strikes, or ...
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Sensor resolution and ISO performance [duplicate]
I keep hearing that
less megapixels = better ISO performance, because larger pixels capture more light
Suppose I shot something with a 4MP sensor and then downscale it to 1MP (4-to-1 pixel binning?)....
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How are focal lengths derived from camera calibration (resectioning) and pixel sensitive area related?
In camera calibration (camera resectioning process, e.g. camera calibration with OpenCV) does the result for focal lengths fx and fy depend on the photo-sensitive area inside the pixel ?
If I have a ...
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What's the point in covering the viewfinder?
Recently, I found out that the rubber cover on the strap of my Canon EOS camera is used to cover the viewfinder. I searched on the web to learn why should I cover the viewfinder and I read that it ...
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confusion about the principle of on-sensor PDAF technique
There are a lot of pictures over the internet illustrating the principle of phase detection autofocus, such as this one
https://www.androidauthority.com/how-pdaf-works-1102272/
The simplest way to ...
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Spots on LCD of a Blackmagic pocket cinema camera
I bought a used Blackmagic pocket cinema camera last week. It was ok then I noticed a few green spots on LCD 3 days ago(bottom part), and today I noticed it grew bigger and also I noticed a new lines ...
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I have a white and pink line on my LCD screen
I was shooting a wedding video for a client and during the reception they had lasers where the DJ booth was for the dancing. As I was filming for around 25 minutes I realized that all of a sudden I ...
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What is the cause of these colored dots?
I recently bought a used Canon 6D with the 24-105 f/4 L USM kit lens. After shooting some outdoor pictures at night, I noticed some colored pixels or dots in the images, especially at longer exposures ...
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Sensor size and pixels amount impact on image quality
Digital cameras have two characteristics: sensor size and pixels amount (in MP). I know the bigger sensor is and the more pixels amount is the better for the final image quality. But what ...
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Sensor Scratched/Marks
I need some feedback on what these marks might be.
Iso: 100,
Aperture: f22,
Shutter: 1/8.
Applied "DEHAZE" in Lightroom so that the you can see the lines clearer.
Ignore the sunflare to the ...
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I want to photograph in low light settings and make 11x15 enlargements, current smartphone not adequate
I have $350 US dollars to spend and was looking at new smartphones with top criteria being picture quality (have newborn, need pics).
However, I read even sub $200 cameras have better performance than ...
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Did sensors improve in the last 10 years?
I have a Sony SLT-65 and consider getting a new mirror-less APS-C camera. What can I expect from sensor development of the last 10 years? E.g., does the Fuji X-T1 offer better quality in low-light/...
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Full Well Capacity Questions
As I understand it, there are two potential limiting factors on full well capacity.
a) adc bit depth and gain,
b) pixel size and ability to absorb photons
Whichever is the smaller value (in electrons),...
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What image will I get if I attached a DSLR lens to an iPhone sensor?
As we all know, we will get a cropped image when we use the same lens on FF and APS-C. The image is kind of zoomed-in. THe image quality of the two images would depends on the sensor quality.
If I ...
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Sensor damage due to overheating?
I have recently got a Fuji X-T4 and did some overheating tests in various 4k video modes. I repeatedly overheated the camera without a break to see where the limits for video shooting are.
I know that ...
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Is there any difference in distance from Sensor to the lens (first glass) when we compare Sigma 24-70 2.8 and Sony 24-70 2.8?
I am looking to buy a 2.8 lens, I heard that Sony's lens is more closer to the sensor. Is that true ?
Why I am asking this because, I heard (not sure) that one advantage of mirrorless camera's are ...
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Can I damage my camera by shooting directly at a lightbulb in the ceiling?
I got my first dSLR, a Nikon D3500, a few weeks ago. Today I was trying out manual mode and for some reason I thought it would be cool to shoot pointing directly at the lamp/lightbulb in the ceiling ...
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Transition between different film/sensor generations
During the history of photography, there has arguably been no component which has improved as much as the medium which records the light. The mainstream has gradually moved from glass plates, to 5x4&...
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