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It is simply not true that noise increases as pixel size increases. The exact opposite is widely known to be true. See this page, for example: http://firmitas

It is simply not true that noise increases as pixel size increases. The exact opposite is widely known to be true. See this page, for example: http://firmitas.org/Sensor.html http://firmitas.org/Sensor.html

ISL 14y ago
I'm not a CCD engineer, but I suspect you're both right. Photon shot noise increases like the square root of the area of the pixel, but the signal will increase like the area. In that case, the important quantity ( Signal/Noise ) improves like the square root of the area of each pixel. If readout isn't shot-noise limited, then the payoff for a larger sensor could be as large as the ratio of the areas between old and new.
klodolph 14y ago
I was actually just paraphrasing the linked page from Canon: > In addition, the sensor's pixels and readout circuitry employ new technologies that reduce noise, which tends to increase as pixel size increases. The linked page is pretty sketchy, it mentions lenses but not optics. Optical resolution will be limited regardless of whether the lenses are perfectly polished. It's hardly irrelevant too, with modern optical resolution close to sensor resolution. The article makes assertions but no citations or measurements. Worthless junk.
- xyzzy123 14y ago
  Well they're describing the sensor, not optics, so that part is forgivable. Also, they're describing a 35mm sensor. This thing will work with existing 35mm film optics, and (apart from physical properties) that's a big part of why the sensor size is interesting. Would be nice if there were more technical details, but I guess that's press releases for you.
vanderZwan 14y ago
On top of what others have said, let's not forget thermal noise - I can't find it right now but I remember a beercooler-as-SLR-cooler hack someone used to near-freeze his camera, making his long exposure astronomy pictures much less noisy. Also, I've heard that because of this it can be better to shoot a lot of medium-exposure pictures in burst mode and additional-blend them afterwards than having the sensor capture for, say, ten minutes non-stop. So, since the heatigng up in turn depends largely on current running through the sensor: how does that scale with larger/smaller pixels?
demallien 14y ago
I think the gp might be talking about quantization noise...

ISL 14y ago

I'm not a CCD engineer, but I suspect you're both right. Photon shot noise increases like the square root of the area of the pixel, but the signal will increase like the area. In that case, the important quantity ( Signal/Noise ) improves like the square root of the area of each pixel. If readout isn't shot-noise limited, then the payoff for a larger sensor could be as large as the ratio of the areas between old and new.

klodolph 14y ago

I was actually just paraphrasing the linked page from Canon: > In addition, the sensor's pixels and readout circuitry employ new technologies that reduce noise, which tends to increase as pixel size increases. The linked page is pretty sketchy, it mentions lenses but not optics. Optical resolution will be limited regardless of whether the lenses are perfectly polished. It's hardly irrelevant too, with modern optical resolution close to sensor resolution. The article makes assertions but no citations or measurements. Worthless junk.

xyzzy123 14y ago
Well they're describing the sensor, not optics, so that part is forgivable. Also, they're describing a 35mm sensor. This thing will work with existing 35mm film optics, and (apart from physical properties) that's a big part of why the sensor size is interesting. Would be nice if there were more technical details, but I guess that's press releases for you.

vanderZwan 14y ago

On top of what others have said, let's not forget thermal noise - I can't find it right now but I remember a beercooler-as-SLR-cooler hack someone used to near-freeze his camera, making his long exposure astronomy pictures much less noisy. Also, I've heard that because of this it can be better to shoot a lot of medium-exposure pictures in burst mode and additional-blend them afterwards than having the sensor capture for, say, ten minutes non-stop. So, since the heatigng up in turn depends largely on current running through the sensor: how does that scale with larger/smaller pixels?

demallien 14y ago

I think the gp might be talking about quantization noise...