A CMOS imager includes a photosensitive device such as a photodiode or photogate having a sense node coupled to an FET located adjacent to the photosensitive region. Another FET, forming a differential input pair of an operational amplifier is located outside of the array of pixels. The operational amplifier is configured for unity gain and a row or columm of input FETs is connected in parallel. A correlated double sampler is connected to the output of the operational amplifier for providing a fixed pattern noise free signal.