Did you know that 1-inch sensors are actually way smaller than 1-inch? The diagonal of these sensors only measures 0.63″ and we can blame the old cathode-ray tubes (CRT) technology for this misleading marketing technique. I am pretty sure you have heard the term “1-inch sensor” or “1-inch type sensor” many times in the last few years. In the world of camcorders, phones, and drones, the term has been used very often lately as a way of marketing telling you – the customer – that the sensor is fairly large. At least larger than the standard sensor size in similar devices. One example from recent months might be the Sony Xperia PRO-I phone (which does not even use the whole sensor, but that is a different problem). If you hear this, you might think that at least one measurement (usually the diagonal) of the 1″ sensor would actually physically be 1″ (25.4mm) right? Wrong. Spoiler alert – every 1-inch sensor measures diagonally much less than 1″. In one of his latest videos, the Tech-Youtuber Marques “mkbhd” Brownlee talks about cases when tech companies lie to us (customers). A large portion of the video (from 07:48) is dedicated to the 1-inch sensor situation as a way of manufacturers giving us misleading information. As I think Marques summarizes the topic quite well, I decided to write a short article about it. How large is a 1-inch sensor? Let’s start with defining the real size of a 1-inch sensor. Every image sensor marketed...
Published By: CineD - Monday, 24 January, 2022