Tech Shout!

Eastman Kodak, US company that produces photographic materials and equipment has announced advancement in image sensor technology for digital cameras, enabling one to capture better pictures, even in poor lighting conditions. Also, with this new technology, dark, blurry and grainy images may soon be a thing of the past.

Kodak’s new sensor technology provides a 2x to 4x increase in sensitivity to light when compared with current sensor designs.

According to the photographic giant, the new image sensor technology improves light sensitivity by 200 to 400%. And, as Kodak puts it, the image sensor is the electronic eye that observes the scene you want to capture, turning the light that passes through the lens into digital data which then makes up your image.

The current image sensor technology that prevails today is actually based on a Kodak discovery from 1976 called the Beyer Pattern, which is nothing but an arrangement of red, green and blue light pixels, and was developed by Dr.Bryce Beyer, a Kodak scientist.

In Beyer-pattern sensors, the pixels are arranged so that half the pixels are used to collect the green section of the light falling on the sensor, while the rest are split evenly for sensitivity between red and blue light components.

Now, this new image sensor technology adds a clear or “panchromatic” pixel to the RGB pixels, and since these new pixels pick up all light and not just a specific color component, they pick up far more light information that the RGB pixels.

Chris McNiffe, General Manager of Kodak’s Image Sensor Solutions Group said, “This is a truly innovative approach to improving digital photography in all forms, and it highlights Kodak’s unique ability to differentiate its products by delivering advanced digital technologies that really make a difference to the consumer.”

The benefit of Kodak’s new image sensor technology is that as the sensitivity as well as the shutter speeds increases, and this helps in reducing the amount of blurring in low-light images.

Kodak also believes that this new sensor technology could result in smaller pixels, allowing digital cameras to further increase the pixel count and resolution.

Kodak has started working with sensor manufacturers to incorporate its new design, and expects the new sensors to be commercially available by March 2008. It will then be up to camera manufacturers whether they choose to incorporate the new Kodak sensors in consumer cameras.