How Digital Cameras Turn Photons Into Pixels: The Hidden Physics Behind Every Photo
On July 20, 1976, Bryce Bayer received U.S. Patent No. 3,971,065 for a “Color imaging array.” The Kodak engineer had no way of knowing that his checkerboard pattern of red, green, and blue filters would become the foundation for virtually every color digital photograph taken since. But the Bayer filter was just one piece of a much larger puzzle: how do we transform particles of light into the millions of colored dots that make up a digital image? ...