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Photography vocabulary · Camera Parts & Settings

Sensor

Meaning in photography, with examples

/ˈsensər/nounCore term

In photography, sensor means: The light-sensitive chip inside a digital camera that records the image. It does the job that film did in older cameras.

In Turkish: sensör, görüntü sensörü, algılayıcı

How it is used

Sensor size is one of the first things compared when buying a camera: full-frame, APS-C, Micro Four Thirds and so on. You also clean the sensor and talk about sensor dust, which shows up as dark spots at small apertures.

Example sentences

  1. There are dust spots on every frame at f/16. Your sensor needs cleaning.

  2. A larger sensor usually handles low light and high ISO better.

Common collocations

  • sensor size
  • full-frame sensor
  • clean the sensor
  • sensor dust
  • image sensor
  • full-frameDescribes a camera or sensor the same size as a frame of 35 mm film, about 36 × 24 mm. It is the reference size for comparing other sensors.
  • crop factorA number that compares a sensor's size with full-frame. Multiplying a lens's focal length by it gives the full-frame equivalent field of view.
  • megapixelOne million pixels; the unit used to describe how many pixels a camera's sensor records, as in a 24-megapixel camera.
  • noiseRandom specks of color or brightness that make a photo look grainy, especially at high ISO or in shadows that have been brightened.
  • dynamic rangeThe range of brightness, from the darkest shadows to the brightest highlights, that a camera can record with detail, or that exists in a scene.

This word in other fields

The same English word can have a different meaning in another field:

More terms: Camera Parts & Settings

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