Sensors Exposed

At the heart of every digital camera is an image sensor, a silicon chip that contains millions of tiny light-sensitive photodiodes. Each photodiode produces a pixel of the captured image, and the number of pixels (resolution) is the horsepower spec that gets the most attention. However, the quality of the final image isn’t determined by the number of pixels alone. When comparing cameras and their sensor specs, you need to do more than merely count megapixels—there’s a lot more about sensors that you’ll want to consider.