In-depth guides on camera sensors, pixels, and core hardware — from 200MP sensors and pixel binning to autofocus and image stabilization.
Open the camera app on a modern flagship phone and the marketing will shout "200MP" or "48MP" at you. Yet check the file your phone actually saves, and it is often a 12-megapixel image. Those…
Autofocus is one of the quiet revolutions of modern photography. Half-press the shutter on a contemporary mirrorless camera and it can find a face, lock onto an eye, and track a moving subject in a…
Blurry handheld shots are one of the most common frustrations in photography. No matter how steady your hands feel, tiny involuntary movements — your heartbeat, breathing, and muscle tremors — shift the camera during the…
Press the shutter halfway and a modern camera can lock focus on a fast-moving subject in a small fraction of a second. That speed is largely the work of phase detection autofocus, or PDAF —…
"Weather sealing" is one of the most heavily marketed — and most widely misunderstood — features on modern cameras. A sealed body can shrug off drizzle, dust, and sea spray, but it is not a…
For years, the image sensor inside your camera was designed first and foremost to take still photographs. Video was a feature that rode along on that hardware. That is no longer true. Today's most advanced…
For most of the twentieth century, the single-lens reflex (SLR) camera was the default tool of serious photography, and at its heart sat a surprisingly simple mechanism: a hinged mirror that bounced light from the…
A cattle egret landing sequence, captured as a burst of frames. Photo by Hari K Patibanda, CC BY 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons. Manufacturers love to advertise burst speed. A decade ago, 10 frames per second…
Every photographer eventually notices them: faint dark spots that appear in the same place in every frame, most visible against clear skies and bright walls at small apertures. Those specks are not on your lens…
Every photographer has hit the same wall: a scene the camera simply cannot hold. The sky blows out to pure white, or the shadows collapse into a noisy mess — sometimes both at once. The…