There’s probably more talk about sensors in digital photography than anything else, so here’s a run-down on sensor basics and everything you need to know to make sense of the jargon. First of all, sensors are made using two types of chip technology. They’re often used in sensor descriptions so it makes sense to mention […]
Bayer sensor
Most camera sensors use a single layer of photosites (pixels). These are only sensitive to light, not colour, so a mosaic of red, green and blue filters (the ‘bayer pattern’) is placed on top of the sensor’s photosites so that individually they capture red, green or blue light. When the camera processes the sensor data to produce an image, it ‘demosaics’ the red, green and blue data, using colour information from surrounding photosites to ‘interpolate’ full colour data for each pixel.