CCD vs CMOS (Nikon D200 Vs D600) the battle everyone's been waiting for!
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- Опубликовано: 23 июл 2024
- In this video I wanted to compare the output of a CMOS and CCD Side by side. In order to do so I decided to try to reduce the variables to as few as possible so I am comparing the CCD from the Nikon D200 with the CMOS on the D600. This is actually not as crazy as it sounds even though the cameras are 6 years apart!
The D200 and D600 have a nearly identical pixel density so the resolutions don't need to be played with to make a matching image. The fact they are both Nikon means I can put the same lenses on each camera so lens rendition won't factor in. With that let's see what differences if any we can spot!
Chapters
0:00 - Intro
3:30 - Additional Background Info
9:07 - Image Comparison
10:36 - CCD vs CMOS Discussion
16:26 - Conclusion
The video was recorded on a Sony A7 III with the 28mm F2, Deity D4 mini Mic, with a set of video lights.
This is the best comparison of CCD vs CMOS sensor output that I have seen so far. It would also be worthwhile looking at early CMOS sensor output to understand when things changed in terms of colours and texture. The images from the D3 and D700 look a lot closer to their CCD predecessors than to later CMOS models.
I did consider that the older ones might render closer but. The cropping required to do the comparison was a bit much. Hmm if I bought a d100 to use as the CCD camera I think I would be better but even then there is some finagling.
@@Mr50mmish Perhaps a D200 vs D300? Both are crop sensor, one a CCD and the other, an early CMOS.
@@sameerrao5834 I did consider doing something similar (don't currently own a d300) but the pixel pitch of the d200 and d300 are different and I didn't want to deal with scaling images. That said I am considering looking for a D2x (just because I want one more than the d300 haha) so if I get that I expect to revisit this. I may also repeat this using a canon camera of the same era and the D200.
I definitely prefer the CCD. I have both a Pentax 645D ( a 40MP CCD) and a Pentax 645Z (a 50MP CMOS) and I can see a difference, and prefer the CCD. CCDs seem a bit more like film, indeed, the way that they work is more like film. CCDs are exposed to the whole image simultaneously, whereas CMOS is scanned in a raster fashion. I don't know why this would make a difference, but it does.
Yeah the global shutter on a CCD is pretty awesome but now Sony's global shutter CMOS is a thing I wonder how those will compare!
I'm interested in this debate and I use both of these cameras. To me, once you adjusted the colour on the D600 output, there's very little difference between the sample pictures.
I personally think this debate is based on a faulty correlation. I think there's nostalgia about the look of early digital among younger people whose childhood pictures were taken like that. And the, frankly, poor quality of the pre 2005 cameras is being enjoyed for its particular aesthetic and mistaken for a 'filmic' quality. It is not. And I know that because I kept shooting film during that phase _precisely_ because of how horribly unlike film those early cameras were - terrible dynamic range with bone white highlights (compared to negative film's wide latitude) and awful muddy skin tones (compared to the beautiful gradations of film).
In 2005, cameras like the D200 demonstrated that digital could look really, really good. And cameras since then, most of them CMOS, have continued to do so - with wide variations in the colour balances that manufacturers have favoured (it's all fashion, folks). The most 'filmic' looking camera I've used (and I still use it regularly) is the Fujifilm XE1 with the Xtrans1 sensor (the Xpro1 uses it and it's famous for this film-like rendering). And it's CMOS.
But pretty much all post-2005 cameras can be tweaked to give beautiful results - some more easily than others such as the D600 and the Canon 5D Classic just as examples. I think the 'clinical' look people are responding to atm is about colour depth and the sharpness and contrast of very precise modern lenses - combined with certain fashions in rendering and processing.
I don't think CCD sensors in themselves have any special aesthetic characteristics. Rather it's the era in which they were common that had its set of technical challenges and aesthetic choices.
I think the clinical look is due to several factors combined. One major one in my opinion is digital sharpening. There was no sharpening with film it was a trait of the lens only and maybe film grain size. I prefer an optical sharp lens and as little digital sharpening as possible. Digital sharpening seems unnatural to me and I think this is what people really mean when they say clinical. With digital cameras you don't know what digital processing may be happening in the sensor or processor without your awareness as default by the manufacture. To understand why digital does not look like film you have to ask yourself what processes are happening now that were not in play with film. Digital sensors require at minimum some sharpening due to sensor construction then there is the bayer filter or x-trans processing as well. also I believe film is a color subtractive Chemical process while digital is colour additive. It's more profitable to sacrifice lens optical qualities now and use digital processing to compensate.
@@dwaynepiper3261 very well said,
@@dwaynepiper3261
What a pleasure to read your comment because I have been thinking that for a while but I am not an expert in English and it is difficult for me to express it.
I think it is very true that the first CCD and early CMS professional cameras wanted to look like film, it is logical since those users had to be justified in making the change. I remember that time and we went from seeing weird toys to digital cameras that looked great and then turned out to perform better. So it was a matter of changing the bodies and taking advantage of the optics inherited from film, at least in Nikon and Canon Olympus went a different route. Then the world of photography was shaken by the cell phone revolution. which was not just a digital camera but a camera that made it "prettier" without any editing effort. Cell phones and social networks invaded photography. And for me they imposed a way of seeing. If the first digital cameras wanted to look like film, the latest digital cameras want to do what cell phones do but better. I mean, RAW files that are already super cooked by the software. I think that in optics almost everything is invented, but not in software. Or at least, it is cheaper to make a mediocre optic and correct it in software than to make a decent optic that did not need as much software adjustment. I don't know if you saw the video and user comments in Nigel Danson's comparison between a D200 and a Z7 in landscape photography. I don't know if you saw the video and user comments in Nigel Danson's comparison between a D200 and a Z7 in landscape photography
I love reading user feedback and I guess not everyone has the D200. I also think there is a generational issue and over time perhaps the influence of film on the look of digital photography will not even be a preset.
Very interesting test. The CCD pics do seem to have more character.
The gradient texture thing you mention, I noticed it too when using CCD. It is almost like it dithers color transitions, rather than making them smooth as in CMOS. Yes, it is a kind of random "grain" (as distinct from simple ugly banding if it were only a matter of color depth) and I find it much more pleasing to the eye than "plastic" smoothness of CMOS. Older CCDs had this effect especially noticeable. I have Canon G10 and G12, and in the older G10 this is very pronounced compared to G12 which feels a bit smoother. And yes, I think we can call it "grain" - I've started photography back with analogue and this effect is very similar to what you get on film.
Also, I've noticed that CCDs even when at higher ISO still preserve detail, contrasty bits... With CMOS when you get noise, then everything is noisy, and with CCDs it is the gradients and uniform areas which are more noisy ("textured" I'd say) than detail. Coming from film originally, I also find this more pleasing to the eye than CMOS where everything just looks as if someone placed a uniform "noise" filter over everything.
FINALLY
In regards to your observation on colour transitions are these 12 or 14 bit sensors?
The D200 does 12 bit NEFs the D600 is 14 bits. I didn't think of it at the time but I should have probably set the output to 12bits on the d600.
Pics from my old Canon 10D and Pentax K10D look a little more saturated than pics from my 5Dii and K20D, respectively. Only reason I noticed that was all the hoo-hah recently about the CCD nostalgia. Yes, there is a slight difference, but not one I'd go out of my way to find or buy another old camera to capture. It's mostly not worth bothering about.
On balance, I'd say the lens used on the day could have more affect on image balance - I shoot a lot of old manual glass and some of the older pics might have got their very slightly more saturated look from the glass in use.
Mr 50mm l listened carefully to your explanation related to the model choices for the sensor comparison. It made sense to me as l have both Nikons. Of course it is a matter of availability too. The CCD v CMOS ‘imbroglio’ does have a dichotomy of ‘positions’ with confirmed adherents. Perhaps not unlike BETA v VHS, the former apparently had the superior quality but the later cost less. I do recall from my meanderings on this topic, that Leica persisted with the CCD sensor with one of its later models. Who knows where further development may have taken the CCD? Although it has persisted l believe in photocopy technology. In the visual image comparison you conducted the D200 didn’t perform too shabbily at all. What the histograms revealed about the colours was particularly of interest. So some evolution in the ‘colour science’ has occurred over the model generations. I do agree with the views suggesting it is not all down to a sensor ‘shoot out’, filter configuration, processors etc are all part of the bigger picture.
Yeah there is likely a lot at play rather than just what is being read out of the sensors. But indeed Lieca and Phase One had continued to use CCDs for a long time after. The Lieca M9 used a Kodak sensor and was made in 2009 to 2012. Phase One IQ 3 80 being introduced in 2016. Until the IQ 4 series which was entirely CMOS line up of digital backs.
For me, Nikon model after around Expeed 3 era (after 2012) rendered picture more blue leaning and seem to have darker image at the same exposure compare to older camera (might not included some really old model like D1 series or D100 which have somewhat darker image at the same exposure as well though they're different from model with Expeed 3 and later processor), and I have to say their light meter also pick a value around 1 stop under what the older DSLRs or film cameras can metered in bright daylight and even when compensate 1 stop more exposure its picture still not look as bright as picture from film camera when exposed at the same value with the same ISO film. So I think the difference should be credited to how newer image processor and overall camera processing work rather than the different between CCD and CMOS but because newer cameras had been made in a way that they're not as sensitive as older model for some reason and there're somewhat noticable change in Nikon color science in Expeed 3 era and beyond compare to Pre-Expeed era (everything before 2007 which have rather high color intensity while not have so good dynamic range and the image didn't look as clear as newer model) and original Expeed era (D3, D300, D700, D90; which I found their color rendition brighter and clearer than the model before and after while still vibrant; Expeed 3 and later didn't render as vivid color by default anymore and by that time Canon's image look more vibrant which is opposited from before that time).
Yeah so there does seem to be a pretty big change in the way the color science is done on these cameras. Haha I might need to repeat this with a d2x down the line.
CCD seems to have better micro contrast. CMOS looks flatter and and more processed (Digital). I think a monochrome photo comparison test would show it better if true. Much easier to see the differences in B&W. I've seen other videos where it shows more color variations in gradients. I think it just looks like more of an analog tonal curve in CCD. CMOS has come a long way and modern sensors give excellent modern looks. They have so much circuitry though in their processing (High transistor count). CCD has much less circuitry but then is speed capped to it's design. To get speed out of CCD's companies like Kodak and Sony split sensors into a multi tap architecture where its like having up to four sensors working as one. They had to be balanced together to make it look seamless. CMOS took over after that as it gave imaging technology much more potential. I wonder how far they could could have taken CCD's overall had CMOS not taken over all development.
CIS has some huge benefits being so widely used as a sensor compared to CCDs, and becoming more and more so. CCDs have some inherent benefits but with softwares and better interpolation I think there isn't enough in using a CCD.
Yeah the market kind of took the CMOS tech and ran with it.
D200 just takes better pics. I even like the 3200 grain on d200. Looks lofi filmic
if not grain, is it noise?
Yeah, but it might be a specific type of noise. I'm not exactly sure what as there are lots of different noise sources between CMOS and CCDs.
@@Mr50mmish if i remember correctly, back in the day cmos sensors were front-side illuminated, while ccd sensors were bsi, which made cmos sensors show a bit more of a vignetting effect since light came in slightly off-angle?
also, there might have been something about higher luma noise but lower chroma noise for ccds compared to cmos sensors back in the day?
maybe those two effects was what made the ccd bokeh have a more "textured" look with more saturated colours?
separate question just out of my own curiosity: did you find dynamic range suffered? ie. some people find canon 5dm3 is more saturated straight out of camera RAW than an r6, cos it has less dynamic range. is that the case for ccds vs cmos?
@@vtct_ytaa that could be it. Giving the noise profile it's look. When it came to overall saturation I actually didn't find the D600 less saturation once I matched the blue channel to the D200. Despite the D600's higher DR. Maybe the R6 flattens the image more to keep images from appearing blown. I do notice that the D600 will just recover more than the D200 as a result. Haha I suppose they might have actively made that choice to keep the images a bit more pleasant!
@@Mr50mmish ahh gotcha, very good video mate. keep up the good work and i look forward to watching more videos from you! Cheers for all the testing you do!
You should compare them to Foveon :)
I actually do want to give it a ago. Haha if I can find the SD1 Merrill or maybe the quattro for a reasonable price you can definitely expect a video!
It would have more sense to have compared the D200 (last CCD) with the D300 (first CMOS) in what is almost the same body except for the larger rear screen. Much of the CCD film look is really the processor colour science!
I don't see why it would be better to compare the 2 aside from their generational closeness. I wasn't specifically looking at the sensors in terms of technical capability. (Hence why most of the photos were shot their base ISO, in scenes where the Dynamic range wasn't pushed to the limit). Additionally the D200 and D300 resolutions could have caused more of a look difference than the near identical pixel pitch of the D200 and D600. Admittedly I actively made the choice to examine 2 sensors with the same pixel pitch rather than of similar generation because I personally though I'd have even more emphasis on the differences given most opinions are that modern CMOS look "too clinical". Finally the D200 was later in the life of nikon's CCD but it's years before they stopped using it the D3000 was Nikon's final CCD DSLR (in 2009, 3 years after the D200 release), the D300 is also depending on how you view it the second or third gen DSLR from Nikon with CMOS, the D2h (LBCAST) technology is a variant of CMOS technology, but if you want to exclude that then the D2x would be the first gen Nikon with a CMOS sensor (supposedly designed by Nikon, made by Sony). Although the D300 is the first Nikon DSLR to feature a CMOS that is wholly designed by Sony.
Yes, the CCD matrix gives a more beautiful color, do you know that Panasonic has such matrices?
CCDs are great! I am not aware, from what I know Panasonic in their stills and hybrid cameras use their own NMOS which is also a variant of CMOS
seems like a stronger aa filter on d600
They look fairly similar to me, I guess I should have tried a test chart or something for the video. Although I'm sure somewhere there has to have been a review where someone calculated the effective max resolving power of each sensor!
Apsc vs Fullframe? Not a fair comparison: you should have compared D200 vs D300.
I use the 2 due to their very similar pixel pitch. Additionally the d600 was shot in DX mode and the image output was effectively the same as the d200 as a result.
The CCD version has somewhat nicer colors, the cmos seems a bit cooler, technical.
But these are ancient cameras the CCD version being just different, not better. The cmos has far better noise performance.
CCD is anything but film, it has ugly color noise. And is just as harsh as any old digital, modern cameras destroy these results.
I think it`s wishfull thinking and pseudo science combined, if you want it to be better you`re definetly going to see it.
Besides, only 2 demo photos, that`s pathetic.
I did say off the bat it's not a technical examination of the 2 sensors, there are plenty of websites that will quantify how much better modern CMOS to CCD is. I am aware that CMOS sensors have progressed a lot and of course modern sensor noise performance will be much better than old CCDs. As for lack of photos given that I only color saw differences in the blues across a few photo for my photos I didn't think I'd need display that multiple times to show it. If you want a technical comparison you are free to play with all the charts you want on DXO.
@@Mr50mmish Man, there really was much more going on with the colors than only the blues. And btw. 2 pics is still a lousy 2 pics.
Far to little in any comparison.
And how come you say there still some magical CCD anologueness going on when all you now say there is only difference in blues.
Seems like a lot of bull to me.
Oh and i hate DXO wit a passion.
Photography is art first and science second, at least for me. And I prefer CCD, the older the better. I find talking about "science" and "pseudo-science" in context of art utterly ridiculous. But that's just me. I'm simply not into forensic photography.
And besides, it seems obvious that the conclusion here that the difference is not in the way it handles color alone, but the way its noise is structured and textured, particularly when it comes to uniform vs detailed areas. I am not aware of any "scientific" metric devised for that so far.