Panasonic has doubled the sensitivity of color image sensors

I’m pretty happy with the low light abilities of my GH3 and G5 cameras. I don’t worry much about sensor noise distracting from my work. In fact I rarely even write about it on Small Camera Big Picture.  However this new tech could double the sensitivity of future cameras for cleaner images in low light and that is a big deal.

Imagine ISO 800 that is as clean, if not cleaner then ISO 400? Count me in. 

 

The way most imaging sensors inside digital cameras separate light color is through filters in which a red, green, or blue light-transmitting filter is placed above each sensor. These filters block 50 – 70% of the incoming light before it even reaches the sensor.

What Panasonic did is remove these filters and put in place a deflector that separates the various colors of light allowing for a brighter overall image. This tech can be applied to current sensors or future sensors which is means that it can go into production pretty fast.

Panasonic has achieved approximately double the color sensitivity in comparison with conventional sensors that use color filters.

I don’t know when we’ll see this in the Lumix G cameras but I would bet that eventually we will. Also consider that camera CPU’s will also get faster making in-camera processing faster and more effective then it already is.

Source Panasonic