A photoelectric conversion element includes a pixel area which includes a plurality of rows and a plurality of columns, a first filter which is provided in a first pixel constituting the pixel area and allows passage of visible light in a first wavelength band and infrared light in a second wavelength band, a second filter which is provided in a second pixel constituting the pixel area and allows the passage of the visible light band and the infrared light, and a first light reduction unit which reduces the infrared light having passed through the second filter. The third filter which allows the passage of the visible light and the infrared light is provided in, among pixels constituting the pixel area, each pixel other than the first pixel and the second pixel.

An image sensor includes; a pixel array including pixels arranged in a first direction and a second direction, wherein the pixels includes a first normal pixel and a first auto focus (AF) pixel adjacent in the first direction, and a second AF pixel and a second normal pixel adjacent in the first direction. Each of the first AF pixel and the second AF pixel includes at least two photodiodes, each of the first normal pixel and the second normal pixel has a quadrangular shape, a first length of the first AF pixel in the first direction is greater than a first length of the first normal pixel in the first direction, and a first length of the second AF pixel in the first direction is greater than a first length of the second normal pixel in the first direction.

Dual-aperture digital cameras with auto-focus (AF) and related methods for obtaining a focused and, optionally optically stabilized color image of an object or scene. A dual-aperture camera includes a first sub-camera having a first optics bloc and a color image sensor for providing a color image, a second sub-camera having a second optics bloc and a clear image sensor for providing a luminance image, the first and second sub-cameras having substantially the same field of view, an AF mechanism coupled mechanically at least to the first optics bloc, and a camera controller coupled to the AF mechanism and to the two image sensors and configured to control the AF mechanism, to calculate a scaling difference and a sharpness difference between the color and luminance images, the scaling and sharpness differences being due to the AF mechanism, and to process the color and luminance images into a fused color image using the calculated differences.

An image sensor (10), a camera assembly (40) and a mobile terminal (90) are disclosed. The image sensor (10) comprises panchromatic pixels and color pixels. The color pixels have the spectral response narrower than that of the panchromatic pixels, and the panchromatic pixels have the full-well capacity greater than that of the color pixels.

A high sensitivity image sensor with panchromatic and color pixels arranged to enable high sensitivity, efficient binning and minimize aliasing is disclosed. Efficient binning is enabled by composing the color filter array of tiles containing pixels of at most two types, one panchromatic and the other colored, so that like color pixels to be binned are adjacent to each other. Aliasing is minimized by the twin methods of evenly spacing out tiles containing pixels of like color over the image sensor, and optimizing the arrangement of panchromatic and color pixels within each tile if the tile contains both panchromatic and colored pixels. An image sensor with these color filter arrays can be used to realize cameras with high sensitivity and a plurality of resolutions, with the lower resolutions consuming less power, while minimizing alias artifacts in each supported resolution. A variant of this image sensor with both infrared and color pixels is also disclosed.

Techniques are described for efficient staggered high-dynamic-range (HDR) output of an image captured using a high-pixel-count image sensor based on pixel binning followed by luminance-guided upsampling. For example, an image sensor array is configured according to a red-green-blue-luminance (RGBL) CFA pattern, such that at least 50-percent of the imaging pixels of the array are luminance (L) pixels. In each image capture time window, multiple (e.g., three) luminance-enhanced (LE) component images are generated. Each LE component image is generated by exposing the image sensor to incident illumination for a respective amount of time, using pixel binning during readout to generate appreciably downsampled color and luminance capture frames, generating an upsampled luminance guide frame from the luminance capture frame, and using the upsampled luminance guide frame to guide upsampling (e.g., and remosaicking) of the color capture frame. The resulting LE components images can be digitally combined to generate an HDR output image.

A method of creating a multispectral decorrelation model for use in determining a visible image from a multispectral image captured using a multispectral image sensor, the method comprising the steps of: generating, using a plurality of quantum efficiency curves for the multispectral image sensor and a plurality of synthetic light spectrum vectors, a grid of synthetic multispectral pixel values and a corresponding grid of synthetic visible pixel values, wherein each synthetic visible pixel value is substantially decorrelated from a non-visible component of a corresponding synthetic multispectral pixel value; and determining a multispectral decorrelation model using the grid of synthetic multispectral pixel values and the corresponding grid of synthetic visible pixel values, wherein the multispectral decorrelation model in use maps a multispectral pixel value of the multispectral image to a visible pixel value of the visible image.

For example, in order to enable an RCCB sensor or a specific optical system to perform an appropriate image correction process (distortion correction and the like), an imaging device includes an imaging element, an optical system configured to form an image on an imaging surface of the imaging element and has a characteristic in which an image formation magnification differs depending on a position in the imaging surface, a demosaic unit configured to generate color image data of at least two colors from the data output from the imaging element, and a distortion correction unit configured to correct distortion of the color image data of at least two colors generated by the demosaic unit.

An image sensor includes a Bayer pattern-type pixel array including a plurality of Bayer pattern-type extended blocks each having first to fourth pixel blocks, each of the first to fourth pixel blocks including first to fourth pixels, the first and fourth pixels of the first and fourth pixel blocks being configured to sense green light, the first and fourth pixels of the second and third pixel blocks being configured to sense red light and blue light, respectively, and the second and third pixels of the first to fourth pixel blocks being configured to sense white light, and a signal processing unit merging Bayer pattern color information generated from the first and fourth pixels of the first to fourth pixel blocks, and the Bayer pattern illuminance information generated from the second and third pixels of the first to fourth pixel blocks.

Provided is an image sensor and an operation method of the image sensor. The image sensor includes a pixel array including a plurality of white pixels, a plurality of color pixels, and a plurality of auto focus (AF) pixels, a first shared pixel including the plurality of white pixels and the plurality of color pixels includes a first conversion gain transistor and a second conversion gain transistor configured to control a conversion gain of the first shared pixel, and a second shared pixel including some of the plurality of white pixels and the plurality of color pixels and at least one AF pixel includes a third conversion gain transistor and a fourth conversion gain transistor configured to control a conversion gain of the second shared pixel. The first conversion gain transistor, the second conversion gain transistor, the third conversion gain transistor, and the fourth conversion gain transistor are connected to different conversion gain control lines, respectively.