Okay, I can’t say this is 100% GOLD, but it sounds like Nikon may be about to completely re-design the digital sensor as we know it today. Back in 2003 they filed a patent for a revolutionary sensor design, and it is just now coming to the surface for some reason, just before the highly expected release of Nikon’s next flagship model. It may be a dud patent for dead technology, but I think not, the timing is just toooooo suspicious!

Here’s the deal: Most “Bayer” sensors, which Canon, Nikon and others (except Sigma) use, are designed as follows- Each pixel has either a red, green or blue filter on top of it, and a light-collecting “photosite” underneath that. When light hits a pixel, a blue filter will only let blue light through, a red filter will only let red light through, and a green filter will only let green light through. The rest of the light is “lost” completely. Now I’m no math whiz, but people have said in the past that if you could have a simple sensor with zero color filters on it, making it a B&W sensor, you could capture 100% of light coming into the camera, instead of throwing away 66%, therefore achieving 3x the sensitivity out of the sensor! That would skyrocket today’s ISO 1600 and 3200 capable sensors to capable of ISO 1280 and 2560, respectively. WOW.

It’s slightly complicated to explain, but apparently Nikon has figured out how to use multiple colored mirrors and photosites to sense all three colors, RGB, at each “pixel”, by basically putting a red, green AND blue “photosite” within EACH pixel. There’s debate about which is more important for keeping high ISO noise at bay, pixel microlens size or actual photosite size, but if Nikon knows what the heck they’re doing, which I hope, they may be about to turn the industry upside down.

I’m just sayin’!

=Matt=