Understanding Image Sensors

Sophisticated technology goes into the design and manufacture of your digital camera. Understanding some of that technology can help you to predict how the camera will fare when you’re shooting in a variety of situations. For our annual How-To issue, we’re including this article on the anatomy of an image sensor. The overall image quality in your photographs is dependent upon a number of factors in addition to sensor resolution. Lens quality, in-camera processing, compression algorithms and just plain old shooting technique all work together. Still, the image sensor is the core around which the rest of the camera is built.