Image Sensor Format - Bridging The Gap in Sensor Sizes

Bridging The Gap in Sensor Sizes

From 2005 there was an increasing interest in producing medium-sized cameras with large sensors but without the moving mirror systems, and consequently the bulk, typical of DSLR camera bodies.

Manufacturers gradually responded to this interest, which led to a new type: the mirrorless interchangeable-lens camera. Epson, an early entrant, introduced the R-D1, a digital rangefinder using the Leica M mount. Other companies followed suit, by introducing similar cameras that focus electronically rather than manually (such as Olympus, with its PEN series; Panasonic, with its G and GF series; Sony, with its Nex series; Samsung, with its NX series). MILC cameras might overall look like compact digital ones, with at least two notable differences: a sensor in most cases of the size found in digital SLRs, and interchangeable lenses. The latter feature, though, was incorporated in at least one small-sensor camera as well (Pentax Q, announced in June 2011).

Nonetheless, until 2011 there still remained a large gap in sensor sizes between digital compact cameras on the one hand and DSLRs/MILCs on the other. Compact cameras were all equipped with sensors smaller than 1/1.6" (48.5 mm2), whereas 4/3" (225 mm2) was the smallest sensor to be found on DSLRs/MILCs. Noticeable exceptions – for a few years – had been Olympus E-10 and E-20 (large, semi-professional hybrid cameras announced in the early 2000s and equipped with a 2/3" sensor). The main reason for such size-gap was portability: large sensors require bulky lenses (that's why MILC cameras with large sensors often show a marked disproportion between their tiny bodies and their large lens systems, zoom objectives especially).

That sensor-size gap was bridged by camera models announced in September 2011: on the compact side of the gap, a very large (for a compact) 2/3" (58.1 mm2) sensor equipped the high-end Fuji X10 compact. Almost at the same time, on the DSLR/MILC side of the divide, Nikon announced the Nikon 1 system, built around a new sensor format they named 'CX' (13.2mm × 8.8mm, roughly 1" in the inch system). Finally, a sensor of the same size (1") has been adopted, in 2012, by Sony, for its RX-100 compact camera (weight: gr. 213). Though, less compact than the RX-100, Canon's G1X with its 1.5" sensor and Sony's RX1 with its Full Frame sensor, further pushed the limits of sensor size in "compact" cameras.

With such format additions – the 1" sensors especially – and their adoption to equip compact-cameras, the crop-factor difference previously existing between the largest compact camera sensors and the smallest MILC sensors has been eliminated.