The sensor is an important part of your
camera. And while it should never be the “be all and end all”
when making a camera purchase, you should put thought and
consideration into the type and size.
The CCD (charged-coupled device) is the
most common type of sensor in a digital SLR. Every manufacturer
offers at least one model with a CCD. They offer the highest image
quality, hands down, but they are of course, the most expensive and
use a lot of power.
CMOS (complementary metal-oxide
semiconductor) strip away extra circuits on the chip to increase a
pixel's light-collecting area while reducing costs and using less
power than a CCD. The only con is they are bigger and therefore, the
cameras are bigger.
What about sensor size? There are three
standard sizes. The first is called Four Thirds, found on Olympus and
Panasonic cameras. It's a standard size that was created by Olympus
and Kodak, measuring 17.3mm by 13mm. Most other DSLRs use an APS
sized sensor, the second standard size. It is a fairly loose term for
a sensor the size of an APS-C or APS-H film format. Finally, we have
the 35mm-film format, also called a full-frame because it is the size
of a standard frame on a roll of 35mm film. These sensors are big and
expensive to build. You'll find them on the Canon EOS 5D and the
Nikon D3.
We can thank large sensors for giving
us better photos with less noise, a greater dynamic range, and better
performance at high ISO settings.
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