Optical binning principle
Binning is a technique to reduce image resolution by typically summarizing or averaging a certain amount of pixels in rows, columns, or both columns and rows. In simple terms, binning means combining multiple pixels into one larger "super-pixel. " While that sounds straightforward, the impact on resolution, signal, and noise is far from trivial. An easy way to change sensor pixel size is to combine pixels into larger 'superpixels', also known as binning, which can affect both the sensitivity and speed of a scientific camera depending on your camera type, whether CCD/EMCCD or CMOS. CCDs are very versatile devices and their readout pattern can be manipulated to achieve various effects.
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