Innovative High Speed Digital Cameras

By Dan Feildman

In this hi-tech world of high-speed life everyone wants that their work be done fast and fine. With the help of digitalisation, all consumer electronics are being developed to give you quick performance with optimum results. One such category is high speed digital cameras. These high speed digital cameras are specially designed for advanced professional and industrial usage. Let us try to understand the concept of high speed digital cameras in detail.

High speed digital cameras are basically designed to capture very fast images. They are prominently used in industrial and scientific applications where a process of their function is moving or changing rapidly. These high speed digital cameras have the ability to operate both in color and monochrome mode.

Monochromatic photos can be in either total black and white or a combination of both which gives you more of a grayscale photo. High speed digital cameras operate on the RGB color scheme which ends up generating a range of colors. RGB senses the red, green and blue components in the image and then blends these components together to form an extensive spectrum of colors.

There are some major features which decide on the performance of a high speed digital cameras. These features are horizontal resolution, maximum frame rate and shutter speed. Horizontal resolution refers to the highest amount of individual photo elements which can be differentiated in one scanning line. This feature is very essential for characterizing correct horizontal video resolution for image aspect ratio. Moreover, it is also used to specify the resolution in the biggest circle which can fit in a rectangular image. Now for example an 800x600 image would be specified as 600 horizontal lines.

The maximum frame rate refers to the maximum number of frames that can be captured in the specific time period. It typically refers to the frames captured per second. The shutter speed refers to the time of light collection or exposure. Shutter speed can be set across a wide range, depending upon the subject and light conditions.

When it comes to high speed cameras you have two basic choices: CCD and CMOS. CCD is short for charge coupled devices and is made up of a light sensitive silicon chip. As light hits the CCD the silicon chip begins converting the light into electrons. The chip then carries these electrons across the chip where they are read at one corner of the array. With the help of an analog-to-digital converter, the amount of electrons at each photo site is measured and then they are converted into the binary form.

The CMOS refers to the complimentary metal oxide semiconductor. This technology is also used to convert light into electrons. A CMOS employs numerous transistors at every pixel to move and amplify the charge via traditional wires. The signals of CMOS don't require conversion into digital form as they are already digital. The CMOS image sensors consume low power as they operate at lower voltages than the CCDs.

The prominent choices for digital output interface for high speed digital cameras include Ethernet, RS232, DeviceNet, CANbus, USB, SCSI, modem and wireless. The choice for a number of pixels can vary from 8 bits to 16 bits. Even the color output can vary from composite, RGB or S-Video.

Some of the prominent physical features for the high speed digital cameras include radiation hardened, underwater rated, outdoor rated, gooseneck, board mount, pan or tilt and remote head. - 30452

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