Just like the analog film trend has been big among photographers over the last 5–10 years, “digicams” and CCD-sensors are now the new thing. Film has gotten more expensive, so people are looking for alternatives, plus the 90’s are cool again, which means those early digital cameras we used to hate are suddenly back in demand. The CCD-sensor is said to have richer colors and to give a more retro look than modern CMOS-sensors. People say that CMOS-sensors were something the industry chose to save costs, and that it came at the price of great sensor colors. Whether that’s true is hard to say. I have also seen the same CCD-sensor look from CMOS-sensors of that time, so maybe it’s more about the color trends among manufacturers back then, who knows.
I follow a lot of the photographers who are into the digicam/CCD-sensor trend, but as a warning, I’m looking for something different than they are. Small sensor “digicams” don’t interest me; it has to be pretty high image quality (APS-H/C or bigger). I want a different look than modern cameras can give, e.g. retro colors, and not just better colors for sunset photos, which I can get from any modern Canon sensor. Midday photos from modern cameras in particular are very boring, and this is where I hoped to find something different with CCD sensor cameras.
Are CCD-Sensors the new Analog Film?
There’s a lot of hype around CCD-sensors these days, and a lot of misconceptions.
First of all, CCD-sensors will not give you an analog film look. Some CCD-sensors might have film-like colors in some situations, but most of the time they look very digital, sometimes more digital than many CMOS-sensors (e.g. Fujifilm X sensors).
CCD-sensor cameras are generally very cheap right now, and people say you should get in on this trend before it gets too expensive. Yes, some cameras can be bought very cheaply, but the best ones are already pretty expensive. Also, CCD-sensor cameras are old, from the early digital age, and they generally haven’t aged well. Half of the CCD-sensor cameras I bought on eBay had major problems, like autofocus not working, even though they were listed as working, and I ended up returning them. So you can easily waste a lot of money and time if you’re not careful.
Konica Minolta Maxxum 5D
First of all, the Konica Minolta Maxxum 5D and the Konica Minolta Maxxum 7D have the same sensor, but the 7D is a bit bigger with more pro features, and the 5D is the consumer version. Both cameras can be found cheap; I got my 5D from a local seller for 20 euros with 2 lenses.
This was the last pro camera made by Minolta before Sony bought them, and it uses the same A-mount that Sony later used for their Alpha series. It has a lot of modern features for such an early camera, like IBIS. As far as I understand, Minolta was known back then for putting a lot of new tech in its cameras, and you can tell with this one too.
This camera does have something special in the images it produces. I think the yellows, oranges and reds have a very nice retro look to them (see the photo below), and it’s definitely one of the highlights of this comparison.
The rest of the colors from this sensor are nothing to write home about. The greens are ugly, the blues look a lot like blues from other sensors, and skin colors are ugly. In strong, harsh light the photos are ugly; where the sensor really shines is on cloudy days.
There are many great lenses for the A-mount: old Minolta lenses, new modern Sony lenses, or third-party lenses like the modern Sigma Art lenses. All the photos included here were shot with the Sigma 50mm f1.4 EX DG HSM, a very sharp lens, but with too clean a look for my taste. I also tested the standard kit zoom and the telezoom, plus the old Minolta AF 24mm f2.8, which was also great. But do watch out and read reviews before you buy a lens: when people say an A-mount lens isn’t sharp, it’s basically useless.
Sony Alpha A100
I didn’t test this camera much, but I’d like to mention it anyway. I have seen people on Flickr using it with good results and getting some interesting colors. But in my testing, this camera was too close to more modern-looking cameras color-wise. It does have a CCD sensor (a lot of the Sony Alpha cameras do), and it’s the next iteration after the Konica Minolta Maxxum 5D in that lineup (Sony bought Minolta’s camera division back then). It has the same strengths as the Konica Minolta Maxxum 5D, with the big Sony/Minolta lens selection, fast autofocus and IBIS. But to me the colors from the sensor are just nothing to write home about. The reds and blues can look good and pop nicely. Skin tones are not good.
Epson R-D1
This camera is the first digital M-mount rangefinder, released before Leica even came out with the Leica M8. It has a 6.1 megapixel APS-C CCD sensor, and when searching around I found photos shot with this camera that looked very cool, with great retro colors. The camera has become very rare and very expensive, but I ended up ordering one on eBay after eyeing it for a long time. When it arrived, it had a few problems the seller hadn’t listed, and I ended up returning it, so this test is based only on the few days I had it.
I did use the camera a lot in those few days, but I was actually a bit happy that I had to return it. The colors from this camera were just average, like the colors from a lot of other CCD sensor cameras from that time, nothing special. I’m also not a fan of rangefinder focusing. I know a lot of great street photographers use it, but personally I prefer autofocus.
There are 3 models of the Epson R-D1: the original Epson R-D1, the Epson R-D1s with the upgraded firmware installed, and the Epson R-D1x, whose screen doesn’t rotate (probably more robust) and which has firmware updates.
My recommendation: save the $2000 this camera costs on eBay these days, and if you’re really after these kinds of CCD colors, get the Konica Minolta Maxxum 5D/7D instead for $20. It has great autofocus, IBIS, cheap modern lenses and the same kind of colors (maybe even more interesting ones). I will say it’s a fascinating piece of technology to look at, but for me that doesn’t justify owning it. I see a lot of YouTube photographers recommending this camera, and I don’t think they’re being very honest when they do.
The photos below were all shot with the Voigtländer Ultron 28mm f2 II VM.
Olympus E-500
The Olympus E-300 has become a bit of a trend in the CCD-sensor / “digicam” community, so to save some money I got the newer but more boring-looking Olympus E-500. It has the same 8 megapixel CCD sensor, but a more modern DSLR design, without the unusual rangefinder-like look of the E-300 (which many people enjoy).
This is a Four Thirds camera, not Micro Four Thirds. The sensor is the same size as Micro Four Thirds, just with a different, bigger lens mount. That’s also the big downside of this camera: it has a very limited lens selection, and the lenses were produced in the 00’s and are rare today.
So there’s a lot of hype about the colors from this sensor, but does it live up to it? I was pretty disappointed. The colors do have something, but nothing that interesting to me. And they only really shone when the light was extremely good, in situations where any sensor would perform well. But even with good light and nice colors, the problem is still the image quality from the sensor. Like I said, don’t go below APS-C. For Instagram, sure, but I take photos for myself to enjoy on my big monitor, and the photos from this camera, even in good light, just don’t hold up. Maybe if you live somewhere with great light all year round, like LA, and only care about posting your photos to Instagram, maybe.
Kodak Professional DCS 645 Pro Back
I have already done a full review of this old medium format digital back from Kodak, so I won’t go into all the details here; go and check out the review here first. But in short, I’ll highlight the big pros of this digital back.
The colors of this digital back are simply the best. Dare I say, the king of CCD sensors. Even shooting in midday light gives you great colors, something no other digital camera I have ever used can do.
The greens from this sensor are very nice, good for foliage.
The blues are also very good.
The reds are very intense, often too much, e.g. with skin tones, but they can also be very nice.
The yellows and oranges are not that good; this camera is not for your sunset photos.
The sharpness of this camera is very good, even though it’s only 16 megapixels. I’m not sure if it’s because of the Mamiya 645 / Phase One lenses I used.
The Kodak Professional DCS 645 Pro Back is rare, so you’ll have to keep an eye out for one, and they are pricey. But it’s worth it. Like I mentioned, remember to check out my full review here.
Kodak DCS Pro SLR
This is not a CCD sensor camera, but I’m including it in this blog post because I see a lot of CCD sensor fans using it, and the colors do look a lot like CCD sensor colors.
I didn’t test the camera much. I bought it on eBay, but the autofocus didn’t work and I returned it to the seller. That’s almost ½ a year ago now, and no new listings for this camera have shown up on eBay since, so I’m still looking for a working one to test.
There is a Canon and a Nikon version of this camera, the Kodak DCS Pro SLR/c and the Kodak DCS Pro SLR/n. I tested the N version, but I have a lot of Canon EF lenses and would prefer the Canon version.
This camera is from the time when Kodak was still trying to win a place in the high-end digital camera market. We all know how that went. One thing that bothers me is younger people saying that Kodak didn’t try to innovate and died because of that, but they did. Go back to the late 90s and early 00s, and all the interesting cameras were from Kodak. But Canon and Nikon had too much know-how in making good cameras, and Kodak couldn’t catch up.
This is a 13.5 megapixel full frame CMOS camera from 2005. It’s big and clunky, but still usable today, with a lot of “modern” features. From my short time testing it, I’d say the colors from this sensor are good. They’re not the same colors as the Kodak Professional DCS 645 Pro Back, but something a bit more modern looking, though not in a bad way. The colors are a bit pastel and remind me of the colors from the Canon EOS M6 / Canon EOS 80D.
As mentioned, the camera I used had the autofocus problem, but there was also a strange CF card problem where the camera would lock up if you didn’t give it enough time to boot (i.e. if you pressed buttons while it booted), and booting took quite a while. I’m not sure if it was only the one I tested.
Like I said, I’d like to get another one to test more, but these cameras are hard to find and (from my experience) not very durable. I can’t tell yet if it’s really worth it, but at least it’s an interesting camera for people who love good sensor colors.
There are also older Kodak DSLRs with CCD and APS-C sensors, but to me they seem a bit too old (e.g. very low megapixels) and even rarer, and the Kodak DCS Pro SLR seems to be what the CCD fans prefer.
Mamiya ZD
Update: I added this camera after writing this blog post, and I’m not going to cover it much here, other than to say that it’s a CCD sensor medium format DSLR and digital back. I have written an entire blog post about it. To keep it short: the Mamiya ZD has one of my favorite sensors, the colors are great and the images look sharp.
Hasselblad H2D-22
Update: I also added this section after writing the blog post. The Hasselblad H2D-22 is not a camera but a digital back for the Hasselblad H1/H2, with a 22 megapixel CCD-sensor. I’ll write a blog post about it one day, so I’ll keep it short: the colors from this sensor look very modern, not the retro look a lot of people expect from CCD-sensors. But I actually like the colors for modern architecture, and especially for shiny surfaces. The sharpness is not that great; people in forums call it “fat pixels”, just like the Leaf Aptus 22 digital back I also tried, or a bit like Canon’s older EF full frame DSLRs. People on the internet say the Hasselblad H series was made for portraits and that the lenses have a coating to render smooth skin. I’m not sure if that’s true, but it would explain the softer look. Watch out for fungus on the sensor filter, which seems to be a big problem with this digital back.
Tips
- Be careful when buying old digital cameras; a lot of them have problems. For example, over the last year I have bought 3 old digital cameras on eBay that were “in working condition” but didn’t have working autofocus when they arrived. One of them was very expensive, and eBay refused to give me a refund even after I returned the camera, but apart from that, you can normally return the camera and get a refund. Still, watch what you buy.
- The so-called AI upscaling tools for raw files can be very useful for those low megapixel cameras, like the Adobe Enhance – Super Resolution feature in Lightroom / Camera Raw, or even better, the new DxO Pure Raw software (check out my short review of that here).
Conclusion
Update: I updated this conclusion after adding the Mamiya ZD. My favorite CCD sensor cameras I have tried are the Kodak Pro Back and the Mamiya ZD. Both are great, and they have replaced my old favorite (CMOS sensor) camera as my new favorites. Beyond those, I don’t find the other CCD sensor cameras that interesting. And I don’t know if the difference is really down to CCD vs. CMOS; there are CCD sensor cameras that look like modern CMOS sensor cameras, and there are CMOS sensor cameras with more of a CCD look. I think Snappiness put it pretty well in one of his recent videos: the color difference seems to come more from trends in color science back then vs. today. Back then, people came from analog film and expected those colors; today people want realistic colors (I don’t, but the camera reviewers do). So don’t get caught up in the CCD hype train, but if you’re a dedicated camera nerd who enjoys good sensor colors and doesn’t mind spending a lot of money on old cameras, I think you should look at the two CCD sensor cameras I have recommended here.
Cameras I didn’t test
There are so many CCD sensor cameras out there that I could test, but I only tested the ones that sparked my interest. I did a lot of searching on Flickr before buying, and most of the time you can tell whether a camera sensor has interesting colors just by looking there. Personally I’m not interested in small sensor cameras, so that rules out all the “digicams”. I grew up in the 00s and always hated those small sensor cameras, so why would I go back to them?
Here are some cameras I didn’t test but that could be interesting:
- Canon EOS 1D Mark I, the original. It has a CCD APS-H sensor, but it’s so rare that I have never seen one for sale. It should be good, though. After this camera, Canon switched to CMOS, very early compared to other companies.
- Early Nikon cameras. People often mention DX cameras like the Nikon D80 / D200 as having good CCD colors.
- Pentax K-mount CCD cameras.
- Leica M8 – often mentioned as a classic CCD sensor camera, but based on the photos I find online, I think the Leica M10 has the most interesting colors (a bit of a retro look), though that camera is CMOS, not CCD.
- Fujifilm FinePix S1/S3/S5 – also often mentioned, but personally I think the colors look too modern.
- Sigma cameras with the Foveon sensor – not CCD, but also often mentioned.
And remember to search Flickr for the camera model first, or look for raw file samples. Those two things can often give you a good idea of the sensor colors before you buy.