3 ms·

Bayer filters are 50% green, 25% red, 25% blue for consumer devices. The reason is that green actually captures much more of the luminance information, and our

Bayer filters are 50% green, 25% red, 25% blue for consumer devices. The reason is that green actually captures much more of the luminance information, and our eyes have a much better luminance resolution than color resolution. Tangentially, it's why the so-called YUV 420 (chroma subsampling) is so effective, where it's effectively encoding Y (luminance) data for every pixel (in a block of 4), but U/V (chrominance) only for every pair (or quad, someone correct me) of pixels. There are examples online of pictures [1] with their luminance resolution decreased: you can immediately see the pixelation, and of their chrominance resolution decreased: you can barely tell the difference. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chroma_subsampling#/media/File:Colorcomp.jpg https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chroma_subsampling#/media/File...

AceJohnny2 5y ago
Extra fun fact: Bayer filters were developed by Bryce Bayer at Eastman Kodak, who first researched digital sensors. Despite such a head start, Kodak went on to completely fail the analog-to-digital camera transition. A prime example of the Disruption Dilemma.
- labcomputer 5y ago
  Because their patents ran out before all the complementary technologies were economically feasible (and CMOS sensors were invented by someone else by that point anyway). It's actually a terrible example of the disruption dilemma. Edit: And there was really no feasible transition path for them anyway. The business depended on skimming a little bit for every photo taken. The main selling point of digital cameras was that you could take unlimited photos at no extra cost. Customers aren't stupid. Even with patents, if you make the camera more expensive to account for the lost revenue on film and processing chemicals, people aren't going to buy it.
colonwqbang 5y ago
YUV/YCbCr 420 means that there is one set of chroma samples (Cb+Cr) for each 2x2 block of luma samples (pixels). Often, the chroma samples fall on pixels in even rows and on even lines. So pixels in odd rows or on odd lines, have to borrow (interpolate) their chroma values from neighbouring pixels.

AceJohnny2 5y ago

Extra fun fact: Bayer filters were developed by Bryce Bayer at Eastman Kodak, who first researched digital sensors. Despite such a head start, Kodak went on to completely fail the analog-to-digital camera transition. A prime example of the Disruption Dilemma.

labcomputer 5y ago
Because their patents ran out before all the complementary technologies were economically feasible (and CMOS sensors were invented by someone else by that point anyway). It's actually a terrible example of the disruption dilemma. Edit: And there was really no feasible transition path for them anyway. The business depended on skimming a little bit for every photo taken. The main selling point of digital cameras was that you could take unlimited photos at no extra cost. Customers aren't stupid. Even with patents, if you make the camera more expensive to account for the lost revenue on film and processing chemicals, people aren't going to buy it.

colonwqbang 5y ago

YUV/YCbCr 420 means that there is one set of chroma samples (Cb+Cr) for each 2x2 block of luma samples (pixels). Often, the chroma samples fall on pixels in even rows and on even lines. So pixels in odd rows or on odd lines, have to borrow (interpolate) their chroma values from neighbouring pixels.