Light Level Adaptive Filter and Method

A system comprising:

• an image sensor configured to capture a first frame of pixel data;
• and
• an imaging pipeline coupled to the image sensor to receive the first frame of pixel data, the imaging pipeline including an adaptive noise filter configured to:
• filter a first pixel using an estimated pixel noise level of the first pixel and using a difference between a signal level of the first pixel and at least a signal level of a second pixel to obtain a filtered pixel;
• and
• output a second frame of pixel data including the filtered pixel;
• the imaging pipeline including a plurality of stages, each of the plurality of stages following a first stage of the plurality of stages being configured to process an input pixel noise frame and configured to output a stage dependent pixel noise frame.