Something that we didn’t ever think would be possible is apparently being made by Sony right now. The most innovative company in the photo world has put in a patent to be able to set the individual exposure parameters at the pixel level instead of the sensor level–or at least that’s what Sony Alpha Rumors is stating.
The new Sony patent clearly discloses this. Apparently, it seems to work by assigning the pixels specific roles to be able to accomplish something like this. In theory, this would mean that it would work best with a higher resolution sensor but that it also means that cleaner image quality could potentially comes from the images. It would also require a ton of processing power and Sony batteries are already being quickly drained of power from the EVF and LCD.
The graph above shows two pixels on the sensor next to one another. The processor would tell each individual pixel when to start their exposures. Though we’re not sure how one would tell a camera to do this at a pixel/area level. Instead, it may just be a more automatic function. But in that case, it would be sad. Beyond that, it couldn’t really be used to capture quick candid scenes because of all the work involved. Perhaps the company will set some sort of parameters to allow for a low contrast image; but even that will take lots of processing power.
