Pixel binning is used to increase light sensitivity and reduce the image resolution. When setting the camera in pixel binning mode, multiple pixels are joined together to make one larger pixel area which therefore gathers more light. When capturing moving objects, in binning mode you can reduce the exposure to avoid motion blur. Furthermore, you can capture better images in dark environments.

The cameras Pixel binning mode reduces the effective resolution of the camera sensor as it combines the data of several pixel into 1. Using 2x binning you combine 2x2 pixels to 1 pixel. The resolution will be reduced by a factor 4. Using 4x binning you combine 4x4 pixels to 1 pixel. The resolution will be reduced with a factor 16. As example we take a 12MP camera. The camera has a resolution of 4096x3000 pixels.

As the FPGA (processor) in the camera, still needs to read all pixels from the image sensor, before combining pixels together, we do not see an increase in framerate. However, some image sensors have the binning feature built in and in that case you can see an increase in framerate. 

When we want to have a # pixel per mm, we need to consider that we will cover this area with the full sensor resolution, or with the new reduced (binned) resolution.

Example If our area is 1000*750mm without binning, we can cover with the full sensor resolution such as 4096*3000. If we do this in binned mode (4), we will cover it with 1024*750 pixels. In the first situation we will have 4x more pixels per mm resolution, in the second case we have 4x more light per pixel but 4x less pixels per mm.

The camera feature ‘Gamma’ can be used on our advanced camera models and is commonly used to enhance the brightness of the images for the screen you are viewing the images on. Gamma correction is a nonlinear adaption applied to each pixel of an image. It is mostly used to convert the linear perception of a camera sensor to the non-linear perception of our eyes. A function is applied to every pixel of an image, where it corrects the greyscale value of it. There are three different ways the gamma value can affect the image brightness:

• Gamma < 1, the image becomes brighter
• Gamma = 1, the image remains unchanged
• Gamma > 1, the image becomes darker

To change the gamma value, you first need to enable Gamma correction, then set the “GammaValue” to a value between 0 and 4 to change the brightness.

If you enable Gamma correction and the pixel format is set to 10-bit or 12-bit. Some image information will be lost. If the gamma feature is required without image information loss, avoid using this feature in 10-bit or 12-bit pixel format.

Be aware that not every camera supports this feature. For a list with camera models, check our download page.

The camera feature ‘digital shift’ can be used on our advanced camera models and is commonly used to enhance the brightness of the images by increasing every pixel’s brightness individually by ‘shifting’ the binary values to the left. Setting the digital shift value to n results in a logical left shift by n on all pixel values. This has the effect of multiplying every pixel value by 2n.  This will result in a brighter image, but will also increase the noise.
If the resulting pixel value is greater than the maximum value possible for the current pixel format, it is set to the maximum value.