The first image ever taken with Sony’s new curved CMOS sensor

A lot of people are talking about Sony’s new curved CMOS sensor, and for good reason. The company’s breakthrough approach to capturing images not only promises better-quality photos, it will supposedly also save manufacturers assembly costs as it is cheaper to produce. 

This past week, the company released its first image captured with the new sensor. From an image-quality standpoint, it’s none too exciting, but it does represent a first for the technology, a milestone moment that opens the door to new possibilities for the digital camera industry.

The obvious question here is — why go with a curve? Or rather, what’s wrong with today’s flat lenses? The answer is actually pretty simple: today’s flat, regular lenses have Petzval curvature. This hurdle forces optical designers to add elements to today’s lenses as a workaround, which increases costs of the technology both in terms of labor and materials.

Curved sensors, on the other hand, mimic the human eye, and allow for greater sensitivity to light; this, in turn, provides the user with much better image quality. For the optical designer, it means a much simpler lens, which for the manufacturer means less-expensive manufacturing costs. 

According to website AndroidHeadlines, Sony’s prototype sensor is a much smaller resolution than what the company plans on sending to production. What this actually means, when considering the fact that they also published the photo taken with the new technology, is that the company believes the technology to be more effective than today’s standard sensors, which are currently being used in all sorts of devices, ranging from the standard mobile phone to high-end digital cameras. 

No word on if and when the company plans on going into full-scale production of the technology has been released just yet, but worth noting is a report earlier in the year that Reuters released which detailed the fact that Sony held the largest share of the global CMOS sensor market in 2012 at 32%. 

So if Sony is, in fact, gearing up to go into production of this new technology, it certainly have the resources to do so.

Story via phys.org