The Nyquist Limit is frequently mentioned in the context of lens
and sensor resolution. What is it and what is its significance
to photographers? Here is an example of it being used by
DPReview.com in their resolution testing. Please note that the
following is a simplification of how things actually work In
digital photography, a light pattern is focused by the lens onto
the image sensor. The image sensor is made up of millions of
tiny light-sensitive sensors whose measurements are combined to
form a 2-dimential array of pixels. Each tiny sensor produces a
single light intensity measurement. For simplicity, I will look
at the 1-dimensional case. (Think of this as a slice that looks
at only a single row of pixels). Our row of tiny sensors, each
of which is measuring a single point of light, is performing
sampling of a continuous signal (the light coming through the
lens) to produce a discrete signal (light intensity values at
each evenly spaced pixel). The minimum sampling rate (i.e., the
number of sensors per