A system and method for performing optical navigation addresses M.times.N photosensitive elements of an image sensor array to capture first frames of image data of a navigation surface when set to a first operational mode such that each of the first frames of image data includes M.times.N sampled signals, and addresses at most the M.times.N photosensitive elements of the image sensor array to capture second frames of image data of the navigation surface when set to a second operational mode such that each of said second frames of image data includes less than M.times.N sampled signals.