22/02/25The effective area of a camera is the physical size of the area of the camera sensor that is able to detect light and form an image. Depending on your optical setup, this can determine the field of view of your camera.
The effective area is given as X/Y measurements, typically in millimeters, representing the width and height of the active area. Larger sensors often also contain more pixels, but this is not always the case, as it depends upon the size of the pixels.
For a given optical setup, a larger effective area will yield a larger image, displaying more of the imaging subject, providing the limitations of the optical setup itself aren’t reached. For example, typical microscope objectives can deliver an image to the camera with a circular field of view, 22mm in diameter. A camera with a sensor effective area of 15.5mm on each side will fit within this circle. However, a larger sensor area would start to include areas beyond the edge of the objective field of view, meaning larger field of view objectives or lenses would be required to increase the field of view of this system. Large sensor effective areas may also require different physical mount options to accommodate the large sensor without blocking parts of the image.
Large sensor areas can yield high data throughput and imaging efficiency, and show you more of the context around your imaging subject.
