... this is my fuji x-t1 ... the little iridescent rectangle is the camera's CMOS (Complementary Metal–Oxide–Semiconductor) image sensor, which serves the same function as film did in the olden days ... this particular APSC-sized sensor, produced by sony, is 9/10"x6/10" (similar to the now ancient "half-frame" 35mm format) ...
... the fuji's sensor has 16,700,000 tiny little cameras imbedded upon its surface ... each of these little units will record a single point, or "pixel," of the overall image ... this is akin to an artist producing a picture by placing many tiny dots of paint on a canvas rather than using brush strokes, as in this sample of pointillism from paul signac's 1892 femmes au puits ...
... the size of each of these little CMOS sensors determines the ultimate "sharpness" of the pictures which can be produced ... avoiding the technical, a 16-megapixel sensor camera with a modern lens will record images at least equal in sharpness to any my father could produce using his beloved petri flex v ...
... now to the absolutely fascinating part of all this ...
... each of those teensy-tiny little CMOS sensors looks like this ...
... this is what they look like under a microscope ...
... how tiny are they ... ??? ... well, you must've figured that they must be extremely small, since 16,700,000 of them fit on a surface not much larger than a postage stamp ...
... it would take 20 of them side-by-side to equal the thickness of a human hair ...
... to give you an idea of their minuscule size, image that each of the sensors is one-inch square ... if they were this big, then the camera's CMOS sensor would cover almost 2-1/2 acres, or, including the end zones and sidelines, approximately two football fields ... !!! ...
... if you could shrink eight flat-screen hd tv sets down so that they all fit on your thumb you'd have a 16-megapixel CMOS sensor ... !!! ...
... fascinating ...
... absolutely fascinating ...
... and, of course, this has virtually nothing to do with taking a good pictures ...