Technology and Innovation

CCD vs. CMOS: CCDs have traditionally provided a “cleaner” image via a higher SNR than CMOS, but recent and ongoing developments in CMOS technology have closed this gap, especially in the case of large, high-resolution, high-frame-rate chips.With CMOS, less vertical smear is an advantage; vertical smear is very common when shooting with a very bright object, such as a light, that is in the shot. The effect shows up as “points” coming off a bright spot, which CMOS helps to reduce.

CMOS: Complementary Metal-Oxide-Semiconductor. You may be familiar with it from digital still cameras. This more affordable chip consumes less power and contains electronics that convert the analog information from the pixels to a digital form. This conversion must be performed off-chip in CCD sensors.
SNR: Signal-to-Noise Ratio. The higher the SNR, the cleaner the image; the lower the SNR, the more noise. Smaller pixels, relatively speaking, have a lower SNR than bigger pixels.