Increasing camera dynamic range through in-sensor multi-exposure white balancing

In typical image sensors the spectral sensitivity of color channels is fixed. The illumination spectrum in natural scenes can vary to a great extent. This leads to an unbalanced response in color channels and hence a reduction in dynamic range. We propose a new method to adjust the relative sensitivity of color channels based on multi-exposure frame combination. Instead of a single long exposure we capture a different number of gapless exposures in each color channel and combine them. This offers a digital option for reducing sensitivity for some color channels and aligns the color channels. The method preserves motion blur and can be used in any long exposure or moving picture photography. We can now get a higher dynamic range from a camera system under any unfavorable illumination conditions with very little effort.