Best camera sensor manufacturers 2017-2018

Best Camera Sensor Manufacturers: Where they are now

As far as camera sensors go and CMOS Image Sensor technology, while Sony, Omnivision, Samsung, and Canon have led the way in the past, consumers today have evolved and technology isn't the only key determining factor now in demand. Customers demand, and have received over the years great quality products and reliable cameras and CMOS image sensors from other companies such as Toshiba, and of course the more well-known Nikon, and, most recently Sony, Canon, and Lumix also appear to be leading the way.

Manufacturers like Canon over the years have claimed to the public that they produce each of their ESO sensors in-house, but given demand they appear to have given way to the consideration of outsourcing of the past 2 years or so.

Fuji, another relatively well known and highly respectable camera and camera sensor manufacturer have actually evolved to relying on Toshiba and Sony for their chip technology, but separate themselves from the 'outsourcing cliche' by standing behind their own in-house branded sensors like the EXR of the CFA.
Then you take a company like Nikon, who shares and often relies on sensor technology from partner company Sony, but Sony appears to have overall dominated Nikon's camera sensor chip development, as they rely on Renesas or TSMS to produce the customized or special request Nikon designed chips as needed. And although they've been known to also call on trusted manufacturers like Toshiba (such as for their D5200 camera last year, consumers don't appear to look on this unkindly as their both quite long-term, trusted brands.

In consideration of other big name brands for cameras and camera sensors, a company like Samsung (who's also partnered with manufacturer Pentax), are now using each other’s technologies in some cases to design sensors, while Samsung appears to be the dominant party in these transactions. It’s also worth mentioning on a side note that those relations and technology sharing or ordering between Samsung and Pentax has since expired or at least is no longer conducted on the scale it was back in 2015.

While other major manufacturers like Sigma has begun outsourcing from their originally in-house camera sensors to other substantially large manufacturers like Fujitsu, a fairly known and trusted technology equipment and service provider, ran out of the Philippines but hosted and controlled by its headquarters in Tokyo, Japan.

Relatively known and fairly trusted other manufacturers like Pentax rely on Samsung, and often the retro but nonetheless trusted and reputable Kodak brand and major manufacturer of original, camera technology. Last year both Canon and Sony demonstrated their commitments as major manufacturers of cameras and camera sensor technologies to really step up their game and set the bar high. You can see that in the ESO camera sensor technology, such as Canon’s 5DS and 5DSR 35mm full frames from last year.
Sony, on the other hand, has made tremendous technological advancements with both it's CMOS sensor for mobile devices and digital cameras - including the releases of the DSC-RX100 IV and the DSC-RX10 II last year. This added back-illuminated advancement of technology has provided solutions to the circuitry involved with limiting light gathering abilities within its photodiodes as seen with its technology and cameras in the past, really setting the stage for its digital cameras this year.