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its-a-throw-away_ t1_j6ova1n wrote

It's all a bit physicsy. But the jist is that each pixel in a camera sensor acts like a little capacitor that can do one of two things:

  1. When energized, its capacitance changes based on the amount of light it receives; and

  2. It can transfer its capacitance value to an adjacent pixel.

The first function makes sense, but what does the latter have to do with anything?

Well, after the sensor is exposed, the camera's logic starts reading pixel values. Instead of trying to route traces from every single pixel to a memory bus, the camera logic reads the value of the last pixel in the sequence. Once read, this value is discarded, and the value of the next to last pixel is transferred into the last pixel and read. All of the other pixel values in the transfer to their immediate neighbor, shifting them right by one pixel. This read/shift/read/shift sequence continues until all the pixels are read into the camera's memory, creating the final image.

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Glad_Significance778 OP t1_j6owt0p wrote

I see, so basically, when light comes onto the sensor, pixels change their capacitance. But what is the reason that each pixel transfers their value to their right pixel?

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