Interpolation question

[eddiesimages]

I am taking an on-line photography class and one of the questions for an assignment is about interpolation. I think I know what interpolation is, but the question is - does your camera interpolate? I have a Nikon D100. Can someone help me? Thanks

 

[Hertz van Rental]

http://www.dpreview.com/learn/?/key=interpolation

 

[Big Mike]

Interpolation is when you use existing information to estimate other information. In digital imaging...interpolation is when you 'up-size' an image and create more pixels than it originally had. The software looks at the image and estimates the color and position of the pixels that will be added to the image. (that's my understanding anyway)

Anyway, I don't think that your camera would do this (not on default settings anyway). The sensor has photo-sites (pixels) and each one is directly represented as a pixel on the digital image...so nothing is made up (or interpolated).

I may be wrong though

 

[eddiesimages]

Thanks, you guys answered my question, as usual. This is a great site!

 

[gmarquez]

Anyway, I don't think that your camera would do this (not on default settings anyway). The sensor has photo-sites (pixels) and each one is directly represented as a pixel on the digital image...so nothing is made up (or interpolated).

I may be wrong though

Mike, unless your camera has a Foveon sensor, (such as the Sigma SLRs), your camera has a Bayer pattern arangement of sensors:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bayer_filter

The camera hardware/firmware takes this pattern and interpolates to full-color pixels.