Sensors matter because everything you do, when choosing settings for each photo, is about getting the right amount of light to hit the sensor - and so expose the image correctly.
In pre-digital days, the photo was captured on a piece of film, which was exposed to light when the shot was taken, creating the picture as a ‘negative’ pattern of light and dark tones. From here you could then ‘print’ a positive version of your image – or have a processing lab print it for you.
Today, the image is captured on the camera’s sensor electronically, and that ‘data’ is then transferred to the SD card as an image. All digital cameras have a sensor, including phone cameras, and they vary in size and quality depending on the type of device.
Quality is relevant when it comes to sensors, as the sensor is made up of millions of ‘pixels’ which capture the image. So if your camera is described as being ‘20mp’ or ‘20 megapixel’ for example, this means it has 20 million pixels on its sensor.
This relates to the amount of information which the sensor is able to capture, and hence how large the final image could be printed, or displayed digitally, if you wanted to.
We won’t go into too much technical detail here – and it’s probably enough to say that most modern cameras have far more pixels on their sensor than you could ever need!
Different types of cameras have different sized sensors, depending on the market they are aimed at – with the four most common camera types being compact, bridge, DSLR and mirrorless (also sometimes known as ‘CSC’).
The largest sensor in the type of mainstream cameras typically available today is what is known as a ‘Full Frame’ sensor, and this is exactly the same size as the negative on a 35mm film strip (36mm wide x 24mm deep), which you may remember, depending on your age.
The most common sensor size in consumer-level DSLR or mirrorless cameras today is known as ‘APS-C’ and then the next most common is known as ‘Micro Four Thirds’ or ‘MFT’. Some high end compact and bridge cameras now use 1” sensors, or even MFT in a few cases - but the majority still have the very small 1/1.23” sensors.
The bigger the sensor, the more ability you have to print an image out very large, or crop a small section from it without it starting to become distorted or ‘pixelated’ as it is known.
Both APS-C sensors and MFT sensors give excellent image quality, and you can comfortably enlarge an image from one of these cameras to as big as you could possibly want to put on the wall in your house! So unless you are planning to take photography up professionally, a full frame sensor is not actually necessary - but is of course also a good option, and will give you some extra flexibility.
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