Higher sensitivity without the Bayer Filter

Understanding Monochrome CMOS Sensors

The Bayer pattern to obtain color information of our Crystal Cameras has the disadvantage of loosing photons in the filters. A monochrome sensor does not have that problem. Each pixel gets all the light, ranging from UV all the way to NIR. Optics should be designed in such a way that focus shifts over the whole spectral range are minimized. But then the sensitivity is always better than the color version. The sensitivity is often 5 – 10 times better than the color version. Another advantage is that the intrinsic resolution of the sensor is maintained throughout the whole spectral range. Our cameras that meet these requirements are the Crystal 42 Nova, the Crystal 30 SBC and the Crystal 35 Spark.

This is why monochrome is often preferred for cameras that just use contrast in the image for tracking or target acquisition. The camera hardware is also simpler because the de-Bayering step and color calibration can be skipped.