To capture the dynamic process of intracellular molecular activity, a large number of rapidly occurring and developing physiological processes from cell division to vesicle transport to intracellular calcium ion concentration changes are widely needed in relevant researches. This process requires not only higher time resolution, but also lower excitation light intensity to minimize quenching and photodamage effects to samples. Therefore, the camera’s highsensitivity image sensor plays a decisive role. In light of the rapid development of image sensors in recent years, this paper systematically reviews the latest developments in camera image sensor technology. Furthermore, its application in live cell imaging is summarized, two widely adopted sensors are compared and the future development prospects are also discussed.