Advanced sensor

At the heart of the GPCAM2 327C is an advanced CMOS imaging sensor from Sony Semiconductors. The Sony IMX327 STARVIS sensor offers increased sensitivity over the already impressive IMX290 sensors used in previous versions of the GPCAM, along with low dark current noise characteristics.

The 2.9micron pixels are arrayed in 1920x1080 format, and at full resolution, in 12-bit mode, speeds of up to 18 frames per second (fps) can be achieved on a suitable computer. However, by decreasing this resolution to 640x480, and 8 bits, we got up to 40fps, while using the region of interest (ROI) setting to reduce the resolution further to enable speeds nearing 60fps.

We were particularly impressed by the low noise (and few unwanted artefacts) from the camera’s sensor, and the natural colour reproduction with minimal processing, which served to add to the feeling of ‘proper observing’. By keeping the gain setting low, amp glow is nicely controlled, limited to one corner of the frame, and easily dealt with using dark frames. With that in mind a useful push-in silicon end cap is provided for capturing dark frames.