Today our photographer Derek Feebrey talks sensors- does size really matter?
We operate several camera’s on our drones all with varying sizes of camera sensors, and yes bigger is usually better but why?
The camera sensor is what replaced film back in the late 90’s. It is the most important part of the camera next to the camera lens.
Each camera sensor is filled with millions of pixels (or receptors). The larger the sensor the larger each pixel. The job of the pixel is to receive light and convert that energy into your image. Which means the bigger the pixel the more light it receives creating a stronger, cleaner image.
The benefits of this is that the image produces less “noise” as the light it receives does not have to be amplify like it would with a smaller sensor. This allows greater flexibility when shooting in low light conditions including sunrise and sunset.
An additional benefit includes a larger dynamic range (different levels of light), meaning that there will be greater amount of detail in the brighter highlights and darker shadows.
So how does this relate to your image?
Well this depends on how you wish your image to be used. If its final destination is purely going to be web based or smaller format printing then the differences in using a smaller sensor would be barely noticeable to the eye, and utilising our lite or premiere service would be the most economical.
However if you wish to greatly enlarge the image or crop into certain parts of it, it would be ideal to go for one of our larger sensors.
Whatever your needs are our team can provide our best recommendation to suit your project. Simply contact one of our team members and we will talk you through it.