So I don’t right now have answers to all your questions here, but true binning is a capability that most ccds have but cmos cameras technically do not. But a number of cmos cameras are capable of binning in the cameras electronics before sending the image back. A ccd usually has wiring for each column of pixels and so it reads a whole column of pixels at a time. It can bin by just adding pixels as it reads them out. A cmos camera usually has wiring for each individual pixel so if it has binning capability in its camera, then it combined the pixels after reading them out in the software of the camera. This slight difference means that when a ccd camera bins, it is as if the pixels really were bigger and helps with signal to noise ratio because the signal gets greater but the readout noise remains the same. For cmos cameras with binning capability, the new bigger “pixels” will have more readout noise along with the signal since they will have the noise from each pixel. However, with both types of cameras, if binning can be done in the camera before transmission through the wire back to the computer, the smaller image should take less time to transfer. If a camera is not capable of binning in the camera, binning can be done later in the driver or software on the computer that receives the image, this is known as software binning. But with software binning you have already lost the two advantages of binning I mentioned above. I don’t believe the raspberry pi camera is capable of binning in the camera, but I might be wrong.

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