Tag Archives: achromatic

A Simple Model for Sharpness in Digital Cameras – Polychromatic Light

We now know how to calculate the two dimensional Modulation Transfer Function of a perfect lens affected by diffraction, defocus and third order Spherical Aberration  – under monochromatic light at the given wavelength and f-number.  In digital photography however we almost never deal with light of a single wavelength.  So what effect does an illuminant with a wide spectral power distribution, going through the color filter of a typical digital camera CFA  before the sensor have on the spatial frequency responses discussed thus far?

Monochrome vs Polychromatic Light

Not much, it turns out. Continue reading A Simple Model for Sharpness in Digital Cameras – Polychromatic Light

COMBINING BAYER CFA MTF Curves – II

In this and the previous article I discuss how Modulation Transfer Functions (MTF) obtained from every color channel of a Bayer CFA raw capture in isolation can be combined to provide a meaningful composite MTF curve for the imaging system as a whole.

There are two ways that this can be accomplished: an input-referred approach (L) that reflects the performance of the hardware only; and an output-referred one (Y) that also takes into consideration how the image will be displayed.  Both are valid and differences are typically minor, though the weights of the latter are scene, camera/lens, illuminant dependent – while the former are not.  Therefore my recommendation in this context is to stick with input-referred weights when comparing cameras and lenses.1 Continue reading COMBINING BAYER CFA MTF Curves – II