Photometrics announced that its Prime 95B Scientific CMOS camera now incorporates computational capabilities that increase clarity of images hidden in photon shot noise, and provides new ways to address data glut, a common problem when imaging at high frame rates.
The camera was the first to offer 95 percent QE by leveraging BSI technology, combined with large pixels and low-noise characteristics to maximize light collection. Photometrics expanded on these capabilities by incorporating an FPGA-based Embedded Signal Processing engine, ESP from its Prime CMOS camera platform, that enables powerful signal restoration for low-light imaging and feature detection for localization based Super-Resolution Microscopy.
The features include:
- PrimeEnhance: Reduces the negative effects of photon shot-noise and provides a three to five time increase in Signal-to-Noise Ratio (SNR), allowing for lower-light life science imaging, which minimizes photo-damage, extending cell lifetimes and enabling the capture of higher quality data.
- PrimeLocate: Solves a common problem in localization-based Super-Resolution data glut. It actively detects and transfers only those regions containing localization data, lowering data storage requirements on the host PC.
Photometrics Prime 95B Scientific CMOS Camera with 95 percent QE and Computational Intelligence (Credit: PR Newswire)
“We initially released the Prime 95B with near perfect 95 percent Quantum Efficiency,” says Rachit Mohindra, product manager at Photometrics. “However more and more customers wanted access to our on-camera computational features as well. We’re pleased to deliver and provide them the ability to accomplish more with one camera.”
Prime 95B captures images using the full microscope field-of-view at over 41 frames per second (FPS) with 16-bit images and 82fps with 12-bit images over a USB 3.0 interface. The combination of extreme sensitivity, low noise, high frame rates and new ability to actively defeat the negative impact of Poisson noise in low light images positions Prime 95B as the leading Scientific CMOS camera for low-light microscopy techniques, including single molecule fluorescence (SMF), confocal imaging and super-resolution microscopy (STORM, PALM.)
