Color Science: Exploring the World Through Color and Drones

Color Science
What is the color of science called?

Color Science: The study of color via science includes lighting and optics, measuring light and color, understanding the physiology, psychophysics, and modeling of color perception, as well as color reproduction.

Key Takeaways:

  • Luminance, saturation, and hue in the camera’s sensor, lens, processor, as well as during post-editing, all have an impact on color.
  • Color Science was enhanced by The Bayer filter, so named for its creator Bryce Bayer.

Color Science Deep Dive

Color Science
© Nicolas Thomas / Color Science

Let’s start by defining color science. The study of color’s psychological, emotional, and physical effects is known as color science. It is an interdisciplinary field that examines color from many different perspectives, including physics, biology, mathematics, and psychology. As a result, gaining a more thorough grasp of color necessitates having a working knowledge of each of these fields.

Color Science and Filmmakers’

A filmmaker’s responsibility is to paint a compelling picture of the world as they see it in order to evoke strong feelings in viewers. An image’s “correct” exposure and color may produce visuals with impact. Luminance, saturation, and hue in the camera’s sensor, lens, processor, as well as during post-editing, all have an impact on color.

However, the final determination of what constitutes the “better” or “more realistic” color reproduction varies greatly from person to person. Although the definition of “beautiful” is subjective, the artist or filmmaker must utilize their own judgment during the creative process to create a work that reflects their own vision. This is why our Micro Four Thirds Sensor was instrumental in our EVOLVE 2’s design.

Advantages of Sensors and Why it Matters in Drones

The sensor is the main factor that affects final rendering even if the lens and processor are crucial to color creation. In extremely low light conditions, every camera generates photos with some image noise. The exclusive low-light technology from XDynamics offers characteristics unmatched by any other manufacturer on the market.

The EVOLVE 2’s Astra m4/3 color science is calibrated to be more cinematic and minimize oversaturation, particularly in the red and blue channels. XDynamics has included a sensor with highly fine tuning that produces natural colors while maintaining the highest level of color accuracy in each channel.

XDynamics has dialed down the highlight color channels when they begin to over-expose in a photo in order to not only function in low-light situations, like other digital sensors, but to maintain details even while taking greater exposures. The Astra m4/3 camera system may provide images with a more realistic, organic highlight roll-off that resembles film because to this and other color algorithms. These are particularly visible while recording dawn or sunset and when they are backlit by a strong light source. As a consequence, the eyes seem more naturally and the focus on the screen is not detracted.

Bayer Filter Mosaic

The Bayer filter, so named for its creator Bryce Bayer, is an overlay microfilter for image sensors that enables photosensors, which typically only record light intensity, to also record light wavelength. Most current digital cameras employ the Bayer filter, which is the most prevalent of these filters.

Color Science

This filter interprets the color data coming from the sensor using a mosaic pattern made up of two parts green, one part red, and one part blue. Once the resultant Bayer pattern has been captured, computer methods are used to interpolate or “demosaic” it in order to provide complete color data for the image.

Through the use of a filter mosaic, the light that is collected by the camera’s lens and body is converted into numerical data that determines the image’s “bit depth” or “color depth.” Bit is the electrical signal 0 and 1. Using 0 and 1 to record allows for just black-and-white images; medium gray is not possible. Since the three fundamental colors of RGB may combine to make a color, a tiny color block must be comprised of the sum of 256x256x256 electronic signals. In general, cameras utilize 8bit to record color and light, which means that to capture a single color point of any image, 256 electronic signals are necessary. This type of color is known as “pixel” color.

If you want to dive even deeper into this we suggest you explore on NASA’s website and the Smithsonian. We would love to continue the conversation so leave us a message here and be sure to checkout our EVOLVE 2 for purchase powered by Shopify.