The Digital Sensor

The sensor lies at the heart of all DSLRs. It is an integral part of the camera that feeds, or is served by, almost all of the camera functions. As the technology is still evolving, gradual improvements in dynamic range capture and noise reduction are ongoing, although increases in resolution are not as frequent or as dramatic as they once were.

This inevitably means new cameras, as there is no question at this point of simply upgrading a sensor. It also means that if the sensor is sometimes exposed to the environment, as in an SLR, it needs particular care and attention to avoid particles on the surface and damage.

A sensor is an array of photoreceptors embedded on a microchip, along with the circuitry and components necessary ...

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