Canon RGBW Sensor patent surfaced online. RGBW sensor is not new for photography industry Huawei P8 uses the RGBW Sensor developed by Sony. Just few days ago we have also spotted rumor that Sony A7S III may arrive with a Fullframe RGBW sensor.
Take a look at the details of Canon RGBW sensor
Patent publication number 2016-208093
Release date 2016.12.8
Application date 2015.4.15
Canon patent
RGBW 12 array
Generate resolution data and color data, synthesize resolution data and color data, up-convert, process with mosaic (Bayer conversion), demosaic in order
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source – egami
I find this patent especially intersting:
A classical Bayer matix is build:
R G
G B
with twice the amount of green because it is in the middle of thespectrum and the eye is most sensitive there. This leads to a total effectivity of ~40%. Keep in mind the color filters absorb parts of the spectrum they are not sensitive to resulting in a per peixel senitivity of 30% for R and B an 50% for G.
This way the bayer matrix is improved to
R G
B W
making sure one Pixel gets all the protons without a filter, ad thus this pixel haveing 100% resulting in a sensitivity of 52,5%
The Canon sensor has even more white areas
W W
W G(RB)
This results in an average color sensitivity of 85%
To recap this: the sensor is intrinically by design more than twice as sensitive than the Bayer matrix sensors – not counting quantum efficiancy or Back side illumination.
Also this kind of sensor will have much more accurate brighness information at the cost of color information – wich is similar to the human eye.
In short tis sensor prommisses a huge step ahead in sensitivity and Black and White photography image quality.
Give me such a sensor with IBIS in a 80D successor and I will grab it in the blink of an eye.
Cool
smalitro if these numbers a correct this means that an APS-C camera with this type of sensor will roughly have the ISO performance of a FF camera:
APS Crop factor 1.5 (for sensitivity 1.5²= 2.25)
Sensitivity increase 0.85/0.40=2.125
this paired with the awesome Canon glass would be indeed a dream