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I am not the biggest fan of HDR photos, as most of them look overly surreal to my eyes, but Panasonic is working on new tech that will make it much simpler to capture images with much greater dynamic range. Traditionally, you’d use the bracket function on your camera to get a series of differently exposed shots and combine them in Lightroom or similar software, but the sensor described here could allow for ten times higher saturation and over 120dB of DR with one click. While there are DSLRs and smartphones out there with an “HDR mode,” I think those rely more on in-device software processing and trickery---Panasonic’s results are probably more genuine.
The organic photoelectric conversion film layer is stacked on top of a traditional CMOS chip, according to a Google Translate interpretation of the research. That layer structure allowed developers to divide the pixel’s electrodes into large and small areas. The sensor can then change the voltage applied to the first layer, essentially adjusting how sensitive the sensor is to light on a per-pixel basis. The effect is a wider dynamic range that exceeds the 120dB standard limitation. The sensor was also paired with a global shutter for eliminating motion distortion.
The organic photoelectric conversion film layer is stacked on top of a traditional CMOS chip, according to a Google Translate interpretation of the research. That layer structure allowed developers to divide the pixel’s electrodes into large and small areas. The sensor can then change the voltage applied to the first layer, essentially adjusting how sensitive the sensor is to light on a per-pixel basis. The effect is a wider dynamic range that exceeds the 120dB standard limitation. The sensor was also paired with a global shutter for eliminating motion distortion.