A system for digital imaging for use in a light deficient environment comprising: one or more processors ; and one or more memory devices operably coupled to the one or more processors and storing executable and operational data, the executable and operational data effective to cause the one or more processors to: actuate a laser emitter to emit a pulse of a wavelength of electromagnetic radiation to cause illumination within the light deficient environment; pulse said laser emitter at a predetermined interval; sense reflected electromagnetic radiation from said pulse with a pixel array to create an image frame; wherein said pixel array is actuated at a sensing interval that corresponds to the pulse interval of said laser emitter, stop the emitter from pulsing for a single iteration; sense the pixel array while the emitter is not pulsing a pulse of electromagnetic radiation to create a dark frame; create a single dark frame buffer, using said dark frame, for use in removing fixed pattern noise; remove fixed pattern noise from the image frame by subtracting values derived from the single dark frame buffer; and create a stream of images by combining a plurality of image frames to form a video stream, characterised in that the executable and operational data is effective to cause the one or more processors to: enhance the precision of the single dark frame buffer with continued sampling of subsequent single dark frames by factoring in subsequent dark frame data using exponential smoothing. one or more processors ; and one or more memory devices operably coupled to the one or more processors and storing executable and operational data, the executable and operational data effective to cause the one or more processors to: actuate a laser emitter to emit a pulse of a wavelength of electromagnetic radiation to cause illumination within the light deficient environment; pulse said laser emitter at a predetermined interval; sense reflected electromagnetic radiation from said pulse with a pixel array to create an image frame; wherein said pixel array is actuated at a sensing interval that corresponds to the pulse interval of said laser emitter, stop the emitter from pulsing for a single iteration; sense the pixel array while the emitter is not pulsing a pulse of electromagnetic radiation to create a dark frame; create a single dark frame buffer, using said dark frame, for use in removing fixed pattern noise; remove fixed pattern noise from the image frame by subtracting values derived from the single dark frame buffer; and create a stream of images by combining a plurality of image frames to form a video stream, actuate a laser emitter to emit a pulse of a wavelength of electromagnetic radiation to cause illumination within the light deficient environment; pulse said laser emitter at a predetermined interval; sense reflected electromagnetic radiation from said pulse with a pixel array to create an image frame; wherein said pixel array is actuated at a sensing interval that corresponds to the pulse interval of said laser emitter, stop the emitter from pulsing for a single iteration; sense the pixel array while the emitter is not pulsing a pulse of electromagnetic radiation to create a dark frame; create a single dark frame buffer, using said dark frame, for use in removing fixed pattern noise; remove fixed pattern noise from the image frame by subtracting values derived from the single dark frame buffer; and create a stream of images by combining a plurality of image frames to form a video stream, <EOS>