Image:Photon-noise.jpg

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A photon noise simulation, using a sample image as a source and a per-pixel Poisson process to model an otherwise perfect camera (quantum efficiency = 1, no read-noise, no thermal noise, etc).

Going from left to right, the mean number of photons per pixel over the whole image is (top row) 0.001, 0.01, 0.1 (middle row) 1.0, 10.0, 100.0 (bottom row) 1000.0, 10000.0 and 100000.0. Note the rapid increase in quality past 10 photons/pixel. (The source image was collected with a camera with a per-pixel well capacity of about 40,000 electrons.)

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Photon noise is the dominant source of noise in the images that are collected by most digital cameras on the market today. Better cameras can go to lower levels of light -- specialized, expensive, cameras can detect individual photons -- but ultimately photon shot noise determines the quality of the image.

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• (del) (cur) 19:17, 31 January 2006 . . Mdf (Talk | contribs) . . 2304×1536 (1,317,907 bytes) (A photon noise simulation, using a sample image as a source and a per-pixel Poisson process to model an otherwise perfect camera (quantum efficiency = 1, no read-noise, no thermal noise, etc). Going from left to right, the mean number of photons per pixe)

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