The Effect of Single-Sensor CFA Captures on Images Intended
for Motion Picture and TV Applications

Richard B. Wheeler, Nestor M. Rodriguez
Eastman Kodak Company

Current digital cinema camera designs employ a variety of sensor architectures based on CCD and CMOS integrated circuit technologies, with either separate sensors for each color channel or a single sensor with a color filter array. Some of the sensor solutions that have proven robust for consumer still photography may fail to meet expectations at the higher system magnifications and greater viewing angles encountered in motion picture applications. In this paper, we compare the desirable attributes and unwanted artifacts that are generated by various single-sensor and multiple-sensor camera designs. To illustrate the key trade-offs in system design, we quantify the resolution, sharpness, aliasing, reconstruction errors, CFA artifacts, sensitivity (speed), and dynamic range that are associated with current designs. We also examine mitigation strategies that can improve overall image quality.

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