Image Sensor Pixel Size Calculator
Calculate pixel pitch, pixel area, total megapixels, Nyquist sampling, 35 mm crop factor, diffraction-limited aperture, and lens sampling from active sensor dimensions.
1.Real sensor presets
2.Sensor and lens inputs
Sensor pixel results
3.Sensor and camera spec comparison grid
4.Reference tables
| Sensor format | Active size | Diagonal | Crop factor | Typical use |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Full frame | 36.0 x 24.0 mm | 43.27 mm | 1.00x | Hybrid photo/video, shallow depth of field |
| APS-C | 23.5 x 15.6 mm | 28.21 mm | 1.53x | Mirrorless, machine vision, compact interchangeable lens |
| Micro Four Thirds | 17.3 x 13.0 mm | 21.64 mm | 2.00x | Video, drones, compact lens systems |
| 1 inch type | 13.2 x 8.8 mm | 15.86 mm | 2.73x | Premium compact cameras and industrial modules |
| 1/2.8 inch type | 5.57 x 3.13 mm | 6.39 mm | 6.77x | 4K security cameras and embedded vision |
| Pixel pitch | Pixel area | Nyquist limit | Common class | Sampling note |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 6.0 um | 36.0 um2 | 83 lp/mm | 24 MP full frame | Moderate lens demand, strong low-light potential |
| 3.9 um | 15.2 um2 | 128 lp/mm | 24 MP APS-C | Needs sharper lenses to fully resolve native pixels |
| 2.4 um | 5.8 um2 | 208 lp/mm | 20 MP 1 inch | Lens and diffraction often limit detail first |
| 1.45 um | 2.10 um2 | 345 lp/mm | 4K 1/2.8 inch | Excellent sampling density for short focal lengths |
| 1.2 um | 1.44 um2 | 417 lp/mm | High-res phone sensor | Often used with binning for effective larger pixels |
| Formula | Expression | Output unit | Why it matters |
|---|---|---|---|
| Pixel pitch | sensor width mm x 1000 / horizontal pixels | um | Shows center-to-center photosite spacing |
| Pixel area | pixel pitch x pixel pitch | um2 | Compares individual light gathering area |
| Nyquist | 1000 / (2 x pixel pitch um) | lp/mm | Highest line-pair frequency the sensor can sample |
| Crop factor | 43.2666 / sensor diagonal mm | x | Converts focal length to 35 mm field-of-view equivalent |
| Diffraction Airy disk | 2.44 x 0.55 um x f-number | um | Compares diffraction blur diameter with pixel pitch |
| Preset | Resolution | Native pitch | Crop | Equivalent lens |
|---|
5.Pixel planning tips
When you choose an camera, you must consider how the sensor record light. One of the most important factors to consider is the size of the photosite on the sensor. The size of the photosites can impact how much light the sensor can collect, the level of detail that the sensor can capture, and how diffraction from the lens can blur the images.
You can use a sensor pixel size calculator to enter the width and height of the sensor’s active area, the number of pixel on the sensor, and details about the lens, and the calculator will tell you the pixel pitch of the sensor, the Nyquist frequency of the sensor, the sensor’s crop factor, the aperture at which diffraction begins to impact the sensor, and other important variables. The pixel pitch of the sensor are the distance between the centers of two neighboring photosites. The horizontal pixel pitch is the width of the sensor divided by the number of pixels across the width of the sensor.
How Pixel Size Affects Camera Images
The vertical pixel pitch is the height of the sensor divided by the number of pixels across the height of the sensor. You can calculate the pixel pitch of the sensor by taking the average of the horizontal and vertical pitches. Other factors that the sensor pixel size calculator can compute for you are the area of each pixel, the number of pixels that can be combined by pixel binning, the resolving power of the lens, and the size of an Airy disk.
Larger pixels are able to gather more light than sensors with smaller pixels. This also mean that sensors with larger pixels will have less noise in their images when taking pictures in low light. Smaller pixels, however, allow for more pixels to be contained within the sensor.
This increase the resolution of the sensor. The Nyquist frequency of the sensor is the value that indicate the highest frequency of detail in an image that the sensor can capture. The Nyquist frequency move inversely with the pixel pitch.
This means that smaller pixels will allow the sensor to capture higher frequency of detail in the sensor; however, this also means that the lens will have to be able to deliver that much detail in order for the sensor not to limit the images that can be produced by the camera. The sensor pixel size calculator will show you the relationship between the pixel pitch of the sensor and the Nyquist frequency of the sensor. The crop factor of the sensor is a measurement of the ratio of the size of the sensor’s diagonal to the size of the diagonal of a 35 mm sensor, which is approximately 43.3 mm.
The crop factor of a sensor can help photographers understand how a specific focal length of a lens will act on a sensor with a small active area compared to a full frame sensor. For instance, a 50 mm lens will have a different focal length on a sensor with a 1.5 crop factor than it will on a full frame sensor. The sensor pixel size calculator will tell you the crop factor of the sensor and the equivalent focal length of the lens on that sensor.
Diffraction in sensors occur when the aperture of the lens is small. As lenses are stopped down to allow only for small apertures to reach the sensor, the size of the Airy disk that is formed by the lens increase. Eventually, the size of the Airy disk can reach a size that cause the blur of that Airy disk to impact the photosites that capture the light.
The sensor pixel size calculator allows you to enter the aperture of the lens, the focal length of the lens, and the size of the sensor; the calculator will tell you at what aperture diffraction will begin to impact the sensor. It is possible to stop down the aperture of a lens to increase the depth of field; however, the diffraction that results from stopping the lens down too much can become a problem for the sensor. The specifications for sensors that is listed from camera manufactures may not accurately reflect the specifications of the sensor that is contained within the camera.
The active area of the sensor may be smaller than the area of the sensor that is described in the camera specifications brochure. For best results in calculating the pixel pitch of the sensor, enter the dimension of the sensor that you are actualy using into the sensor pixel size calculator. If you know the size of the sensors pixels (also called the pixel pitch), you can calculate the area of each pixel by simply multiplying the length of one side of the pixel by itself.
A square pixel with a pitch of 6 micrometers, for instance, would have an area of 36 square micrometers. If you halve the pixel pitch of the sensor, the area of each pixel will drop by three quarters. This is one of the reasons that sensors with high resolutions can struggle when taking pictures in the dark.
High resolution sensors has small pixels to allow for high resolutions, and these small pixels cannot gather enough light to illuminate the sensor. Pixel binning allow sensors to combine the pixels’ images before they reach the sensor, thus restoring some of the area of the pixel. The resolving power of a lens is just as important as the resolution that is possible with the sensor.
A lens that can deliver 80 line pairs per millimeter will become the limiting factor in image quality if the sensor’s Nyquist frequency is higher than 80 line pair per millimeter. By entering the resolving power of the lens into the sensor pixel size calculator, you can compare the sensor’s Nyquist frequency to the resolving power of the lens; if the resolving power of the lens is higher, then the lens will not be a limiting factor for image quality. Many sensor, especially those with small sensors, such as security cameras and smartphone sensors, have very small pixels and short focal lengths for their lenses.
For these sensors, the aperture at which diffraction begins to have an impact on the sensor is relatively bright. By entering these specs into the sensor pixel size calculator, you can determine at what aperture diffraction will begin to have an impact on the sensor. There are also reference tables on the page that list the specification of common sensor sizes and the pitches of the pixels that are contained within them.
Full frame sensors tend to have pixel pitches between 4 and 6 micrometers. Sensors that are 1 inch or smaller in size will have pixel pitches that is below 3 micrometers. You should first calculate the pixel pitch of the sensor when it is native (without pixel binning), and then you should account for the pixel pitch that result from pixel binning.
Most cameras will use pixel binning for video mode or for taking pictures in low light. The pixel pitch of the sensor when pixel binning is used can be different from the native pixel pitch; the sensor pixel size calculator will calculate both of these values for you. The value of calculating each of these variable with the sensor pixel size calculator is that you can gain a thorough understanding of the relationship between the sensor, the lens that is used with the sensor, and the images that are captured by the sensor.
From this understanding, you can make better decisions about the aperture of the lens that you use, the focal length of the lens, and the ISO setting for the sensor. Each of these settings will have an impact on the quality of the images that are produced by the sensor. By understanding each of these variables, you can determine which variable is limiting the quality of the images that are being produced by the sensor.
