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What is camera pixel? Nowadays we commonly see
camera selling with 8 megapixels, 10 megapixels, 14 megapixels, etc.
The higher the camera sensors pixels, the higher the price tag of the camera.
But why or what are we paying for the sensor pixels?
Sensor pixels are like buckets collecting water. It is like an array of
buckets, and we pour water into the buckets; similarly sensor pixels
are align in an array and instead of water, it is light that goes into
the sensor pixels of the camera. The photons of the light hit on the
sensor pixels and the amount of light is converted into voltage and
processed digitally. Hence the larger the sensor pixels, then it
provides more "buckets" to contain the lights, this helps to provide
photo with better noise performance and better dynamic range.
For example on a photo below with 3872 pixels x 2592 pixels,
If we change the photo to 10 pixels x 7 pixels, the result will be as
below,
Clearly the photo does not make sense anymore and we could not even
identify the apple inside the photo. However when we increase the pixel
size of the photo, the image become clearer and identifiable.
50 pixels x 33 pixels
100 pixels x 67 pixels
200 pixels x 133 pixels
423 pixels x 283 pixels
As the sensor pixels hit 1 megapixels and above, the picture become
quite clear and can be seen on the monitor display nicely. However, if
we are to use it for printing or high resolution usage, then 1
megapixels might not be enough and will need even more sensor pixels.
Although it seems that the more sensor pixels we have, the better
picture performance we will get. This is not entirely true though, as
we still need to consider the type of sensor use, how well is the
sensor pixels align, the performance of the sensor, the noise and other
issues such as purple fringing, etc.
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