Re:'Perfect' sensors may be possible, but might not come to ...
by kurthr on Friday February 23, 2018 @12:41PM
(#16447875)
Except in the darkest environments or most extreme magnifications/resolutions (e.g. astronomy) or fastest speeds you're already shot noise limited. Getting a Quantum Efficiency of 100% and 0 read noise is much more difficult than combining many images (like HDR and discussed in the article) and improving image stabilization.
Think about how much light you throw away going through the Bayer Filter (RGBG) vs stacking photo-sensors... that's already >60%.
Re:'Perfect' sensors may be possible, but might not come to ...
by _rolf on Friday February 23, 2018 @02:15PM
(#16448567)
If I understand the paper correctly, this is a very poor technology for "normal" photography in its current state.
On the pixel level, there are no shades of grey. You get fully black or fully white pixels only. You have to calculate an average from a bunch of neighbouring pixels and blend together multiple "exposures" to get more data.
Because each pixel can only count at most one photon every millisecond, even the dimmest candlelit room at night would completely blind the sensor.
If you could have like a thousand times more pixels and a thousand times more samples per second, maybe it could be developed into a camera. I guess that would be way too expensive and wouldn't offer a significant benefit to most buyers.
Re:'Perfect' sensors may be possible, but might not come to ...
by _rolf on Friday February 23, 2018 @02:18PM
(#16448595)
Yeah. "Perfect" in the way it can tell the difference between two photons or three photons over a period of time, but almost useless for anything else.
Think about how much light you throw away going through the Bayer Filter (RGBG) vs stacking photo-sensors... that's already >60%.
On the pixel level, there are no shades of grey. You get fully black or fully white pixels only. You have to calculate an average from a bunch of neighbouring pixels and blend together multiple "exposures" to get more data.
Because each pixel can only count at most one photon every millisecond, even the dimmest candlelit room at night would completely blind the sensor.
If you could have like a thousand times more pixels and a thousand times more samples per second, maybe it could be developed into a camera. I guess that would be way too expensive and wouldn't offer a significant benefit to most buyers.