What is image sensor? image sensor act like film in the film camera era. It capture the light that pass through lens and then convert those light into digital format. Image sensor can be considered as the heart of the camera and also all the camera in the market usually define class by its sensor size (other feature also used in define the class range but not as important as image sensor size). The picture above show the size of the image sensor. As you can see that the biggest sensor is medium format, camera fall within this class include camera from Mamiya or Hasselblad. These medium format cameras usually use in studio. The megapixel of them normally spend around 40 megapixel. This kind of big image is use for large printing such as building wall paper or billboard advertisement.
The smaller size of sensor is 35 mm or full frame. The name was derive from the size of the film in the previous era of camera which the length of 35 mm. Full frame camera usaully considered as professional or at least semi-professional camera. The notorious or bad-ass camera in this range are including the famous 1D series of Canon and single digit series of Nikon (D3, D3S).
The APS-H sensor size is the sensor that exclusive for Canon 1D series but this sensor size is now discontinue as Canon will release their new 1D series - Canon 1DX which featuring full frame sensor.
Continue to APS-C size. This size contain all of the enthusiastic or amateur DSLR camera such as Canon 60D, Rebel T3i or Nikon D7000, D5100 as well as the newly release Sony A77. The different in size between the two most famous brand (Canon, Nikon) is show above in the picture. The size difference is so slim that many people consider it is the same.
Four third system or micro four third system size. This sensor size has been used by Panasonic and Olympus for quite sometimes. Although its size is significant smaller than APS-C in most DSLR its size still big enough to produce good images compare to the compact camera. Compare to compact camera sensor size - four third system has about 8 times area of light capturing sensor thus yield the better image. The famous camera that belong to this class including Olympus PEN Series and Panasonic GF and G Series.
The sensor size that smaller than four third system is occupied in all compact camera, Canon S95 or Sony T-Series for instance. There are a little variation between size of the sensor for each brand but we can consider it as the same size. For camera in mobile phone, they use even smaller image sensor size than compact camera. So the image from mobile phone is usually has the worst result when the man behind the camera is the same man and shoot in the same condition.
Why size is matter you ask? Imagine image sensor as the basket for capturing light. If they are big they will have space for capturing light right? Also if the space between light is wide enough the light that they kept will yield the better result. Bigger sensor also come with depth of field or background blur. Have you ever notice that no matter how hard your try to make a background blur in mobile phone camera or compact camera, it rarely happen as you wish! This is the physical limitation of sensor size (also there are some other variable to be consider). The larger sensor also produce the high dynamic range of the pictures. What is dynamic range you ask? dynamic range is the range of color in one picture. When you look at picture you took from mobile phone you often see that the picture is kinda dull right? the range of color (dynamic range) is rather limit or so limit that picture is like the black and white color? This is the other limitation of sensor size.
In summary, larger sensor usually yield better result of photo in all aspects. So when you try to choose a camera you choose consider this factor before commit yourself into a new one.
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