Tag Archives: illuminance

Exposure, imaging system, irradiance, luminance, radiance, Radiometry, reflectance, Uncategorized

Angles and the Camera Equation

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Imagine a bucolic scene on a clear sunny day at the equator, sand warmed by the tropical sun with a typical irradiance (E) of about 1000 watts per square meter.  As discussed earlier we could express this quantity as illuminance in lumens per square meter (lx) – or as a certain number of photons per second (\Phi) over an area of interest (\mathcal{A}).

(1)   \begin{equation*} E = \frac{\Phi}{\mathcal{A}} \; (W, lm, photons/s) / m^2 \end{equation*}

How many photons/s per unit area can we expect on the camera’s image plane (irradiance E_i )?

Figure 1.  Irradiation transfer from scene to sensor.

In answering this question we will discover the Camera Equation as a function of opening angles – and set the stage for the next article on lens pupils.  By the way, all quantities in this article depend on wavelength, which will be assumed in the formulas to make them more readable.

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Color, Perceptual, Sharpness

Cone Fundamentals & the LMS Color Space

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In the last article we showed how a digital camera’s captured raw data is related to Color Science.  In my next trick I will show that CIE 2012 2 deg XYZ Color Matching Functions \bar{x}, \bar{y}, \bar{z} displayed in Figure 1 are an exact linear transform of Stockman & Sharpe (2000) 2 deg Cone Fundamentals \bar{\rho}, \bar{\gamma}, \bar{\beta} displayed in Figure 2

(1)   \begin{equation*} \left[ \begin{array}{c} \bar{x}} \\ \bar{y} \\ \bar{z} \end{array} \right] = M_{lx} * \left[ \begin{array} {c}\bar{\rho} \\ \bar{\gamma} \\ \bar{\beta} \end{array} \right] \end{equation*}

with CMFs and CFs in 3xN format, M_{lx} a 3×3 matrix and * matrix multiplication.  Et voilà:[1]

Figure 1.  Solid lines: CIE (2012) 2° XYZ “physiologically-relevant” Colour Matching Functions and photopic Luminous Efficiency Function (V) from cvrl.org, the Colour & Vision Research Laboratory at UCL.  Dotted lines: The Cone Fundamentals in Figure 2 after linear transformation by 3×3 matrix Mlx below.  Source: cvrl.org.

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Exposure, Photometry, Radiometry, Sensors

How Many Photons on a Pixel at a Given Exposure

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How many photons impinge on a pixel illuminated by a known light source during exposure?  To answer this question in a photographic context under daylight we need to know the effective area of the pixel, the Spectral Power Distribution of the illuminant and the relative Exposure.

We can typically estimate the pixel’s effective area and the Spectral Power Distribution of the illuminant – so all we need to determine is what Exposure the relative irradiance corresponds to in order to obtain the answer.

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Exposure, Radiometry

Photons Emitted by Light Source

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How many photons are emitted by a light source? To answer this question we need to evaluate the following simple formula at every wavelength in the spectral range of interest and add the values up:

(1)   \begin{equation*} \frac{\text{Power of Light in }W/m^2}{\text{Energy of Average Photon in }J/photon} \end{equation*}

The Power of Light emitted in W/m^2 is called Spectral Exitance, with the symbol M_e(\lambda) when referred to  units of energy.  The energy of one photon at a given wavelength is

(2)   \begin{equation*} e_{ph}(\lambda) = \frac{hc}{\lambda}\text{ joules/photon} \end{equation*}

with \lambda the wavelength of light in meters and h and c Planck’s constant and the speed of light in the chosen medium respectively.  Since Watts are joules per second the units of (1) are therefore photons/m^2/s.  Writing it more formally:

(3)   \begin{equation*} M_{ph} = \int\limits_{\lambda_1}^{\lambda_2} \frac{M_e(\lambda)\cdot \lambda \cdot d\lambda}{hc} \text{ $\frac{photons}{m^2\cdot s}$} \end{equation*}

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Exposure

What Is Exposure

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When capturing a typical photograph, light from one or more sources is reflected from the scene, reaches the lens, goes through it and eventually hits the sensing plane.

In photography Exposure is the quantity of visible light per unit area incident on the image plane during the time that it is exposed to the scene.  Exposure is intuitively proportional to Luminance from the scene $L$ and exposure time $t$.  It is inversely proportional to lens f-number $N$ squared because it determines the relative size of the cone of light captured from the scene.  You can read more about the theory in the article on angles and the Camera Equation.

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