I’m not a scientist. I’m not an engineer of any sort. I’m certainly not a designer of optical devices or digital sensors, just so you know. There has been debate in some corners of the web about old cameras with CCD sensors rendering better colour and their images looking more film-like. I think a pleasing photo is a subjective thing and people are free to decide what that looks like. I’m just curious about the nature of the debate and why people might think this way.

CCD sensors were the dominant type of digital sensors at the dawn of digital photography. Around 2010 or so, CMOS sensors started to appear in new camera models. At the time, I really didn’t think about it, as I couldn’t even afford any of the better CCD cameras anyway. And believe me, there are plenty of CCD cameras that make junk photos! Interestingly, the CCD colour is better pundits rarely discuss those junk cameras, perhaps because their output doesn’t suit the argument that CCD colour is better.

Of Nikons, Canons, Pentax, and Fujifilm

When people talk about those lovely CCD colours, they usually reference the same cameras: most of the early Nikon CCD cameras, the Fuji Super CCD cameras, early Canons and compacts of a certain model, the Olympus Evolt series, the Leica M9, and a handful of compacts with excellent output. Of course, those cameras were always considered excellent. Reviews at the time of their release praised them, so it’s no surprise that they’re still great cameras today.

I used a few CCD cameras at the time, and then moved to CMOS cameras because that’s what was being sold. I don’t remember anyone discussing the merits of CCD colour versus CMOS colour. I do know that the output of many cheap and cheerful CCD cameras at anything higher than 200 ISO is pretty awful – there’s lots of chroma and luminance noise, and the colours don’t look so great. If you read reviews of those old consumer cameras online, you’ll see there was a focus on accuracy of colour. This is because camera makers saturate certain colours to make the output more attractive for consumers.

Consider the quote above about an old CCD camera. Evidence that colour reproduction has always been on the mind of the photographer and that CCD cameras, for all their current hype, have issues with accurate colour reproduction. This is not to say that inaccurate colours are less attractive. Many cameras are sold based on how their on-board JPG conversion software renders colour, after all.

What influences the colour of a digital photo?

First of all, whether it’s a CCD sensor or a CMOS sensor, the sensor itself is actually colour-blind. The sensor only sees lightness/brightness and not colour. The Colour Filter Array on top of this slice of silicon filters wavelengths of light into Red, Green, and Blue. All of this data is transferred to AD converters and the signal amplified. The on-board software takes this data and, in the case of JPG output, it does some clever stuff to render a compressed file. To achieve the Canon look or the Olympus look, or whatever, the software also applies a tone curve, temperature and tint settings, and may saturate certain colours more heavily.

Fuji is pretty well-known for offering users lots of film presets in their digital cameras. These settings emulate some of the qualities of certain films, including colour, grain, and tone curve. The photo above is from an old Fuji Finepix S7000. It’s a JPG straight out of the camera on the Chrome setting. Note that there’s a slight green bias in the white balance, as well as extra contrast. Definitely a pleasing photo.

On some makes of camera, the White Balance is known to bias warmer or cooler. Nikons tend to have a cooler look to photos, and this helps to produce better colour in some scenes where a warmer bias would create unnatural colours, such as in some types of skin tones. But these things largely matter only when JPG file output is needed.

Choice of lens also has some influence on how a photo looks. People talk about the Leica look, for example, noting that there’s some mystique about it. I don’t have the money to buy a Leica of any sort, so it’s hard for me to comment on this phenomenon. What I do know is that a poor lens can produce poor output, and a great lens can produce great output. Leica have always been known for the superiority of their optics, so it’s most likely that the signature Leica look has a lot to do with the contrast and sharpness imparted by the lens.

Hype and reality

So, why are some people talking about the inherent superiority of CCD sensors and how they render colour? Is CCD colour a question of hardware or software? Here are some common reasons and assumptions, including my thoughts on them, from people who believe that CCD sensors produce better or more film-like images:

• The old CCD sensors have thicker Colour Filter Arrays that separate colour better and produce stronger images: As I said, I’m no engineer, so this is tough to question. If this is true, then all a camera maker would need to do is to put a thicker CFA on a new CMOS sensor, and it would approximate all of those great colour results from old cameras. I strongly suspect that the CFAs have very little, if anything, to do with it though, given that there are other strong influences on how a photo looks, such as white balance and camera software.
• Camera manufacturers stopped using CCD because CMOS was cheaper, which led to less organic images: Companies do things to save money all the time, but would they really intentionally hobble the output of their cameras to the extent that many CCD enthusiasts believe?
• Camera X with a CCD sensor makes photos that look so much better than camera Y with a CMOS sensor, so therefore the CCD sensor must be superior: Let us not forget that most CCD pundits never mention all the junk CCD cameras from that era (is anyone talking about those plasticky Nikon L series compacts that produce average photos?). They mostly talk about the CCD cameras that are still good, even today. They were praised then, and they are still making good photos now. I think that some people who were too young to remember the digital transition now cultivate the mistaken assumption that old camera technology is mostly inferior to today’s technology, and that those great cameras from yesteryear make photos look great because there’s some hidden and forgotten technology in them – the CCD sensor.
• CCD cameras make images that are film-like: Let us be clear – only film looks like film. I grew up with film cameras and remember the cheap cameras (I couldn’t afford anything else), powerful in-built flashes, and cheap consumer film. I think the look that many young people talk about relates to the softer quality of many film photos due to low-grade lenses and the appearance of highlights from low-priced consumer film cameras. Those old CCD cameras have limited dynamic range, often creating blown highlights. The best CCD sensors, at low ISOs, do produce less digital noise due to the chip’s architecture, and some people say that this means it’s closer to film. But modern CMOS sensors have advanced greatly in these areas and have far more dynamic range, colour accuracy, and noise control. Just look at the crappiest CCD cameras at anything above base ISO and you’ll see some pretty ugly chroma and luminance noise. The best CCD cameras from that era can make some very nice low noise images, even up to 800 ISO, but none of this means it looks like film. Plenty of people know more about it than I do, but film grain is random and organic. Digital noise is square and uniform. Where an old and highly regarded CCD camera may be useful is at the lowest ISOs and almost no perceptible digital noise. That could make for some nice black and white conversions. The low noise might also make it a better fit for overlaying scanned images of film grain. I’ve never seen much point in overlaying film grain over digital photos that already have digital noise.
• You’ll have unlimited film-like images if you buy this cheap CCD camera: There are lots of YouTube videos touting the benefits of these old digicams, even going so far as to label them Y2K cameras. This is a hook to lure people in to watching the videos so that the creators can game the algorithm and snag subscribers, with a little magical thinking and potential profiteering thrown in. Growing up, I saw thousands of photos from film cameras of all sorts. The so-called Y2K camera, the moniker itself a pointer to the generational interest in digicams, doesn’t make film-like images.

If you want to read a pretty in-depth, though only loosely scientific, article on CCD versus CMOS colours, take a look at this site. Spoiler alert: there isn’t a visible difference between them for most people, and any colour output differences seem to come down to company preferences with regard to on-board software processing. CMOS also offers so much more low-light performance that it’s little wonder CCD was replaced by it in the end.

There is something curious about the Olympus E-1 I’ve been using recently, in light of this speculation about sensors. The RAW files it produces are not as flat and dull as you’d expect. They require little editing when exposure settings are nailed. Is that the sensor? Maybe. More likely a tone curve applied, though it seems odd that this can be seen in the RAW files? You can read my thoughts about it here.

Does it matter?

People love the photos they love. And I’m not an engineer, so I don’t have all the answers. In the end, it doesn’t really matter. Humans are always looking for meaning somewhere and often latch onto narratives despite the data. And that’s OK. Creating and finding greater meaning in life is what we’ve always done.

What I do find interesting is how much prices have risen for the CCD cameras that get the most attention in these online forums and social media discussions. No doubt, some people in those corners have enough interest in profits and online followers that they’ll keep pushing the CCD vs CMOS colour narrative, even unconsciously. I think this is what bothers me the most: the fact that a lot of young people are being duped into paying a three figure sum for a point and shoot from the early 2000s just because some YouTubers told them that the CCD sensor it features produces filmic photos.

In the end, whatever the truth, it’s all part of the marketing and hype cycle. It’s a snake-oil trend that will eventually fade. A generation that grew up seeing family members use those early digital cameras are now looking back to find inspiration in a world that’s over-saturated by AI and overly processed images from smartphones. They feel nostalgic about those old cameras from their childhood and that’s perfectly OK and understandable.

Are digicams worth using now?

The short answer is: yes, of course old cameras are worth using now! Admittedly, I like some of those old cameras because I can afford some of the best ones and their history interests me. And where else would they end up? In the junkyard, thoughtlessly tossed and abandoned as old XD cards and Compact Flash cards molder and rot in their plastic slots? We don’t need the latest and greatest cameras to make interesting photos, that’s for sure.

I do have one thing to thank the Y2K digcam craze for: it has provided me with the impetus to explore some of the early digital cameras I always wanted and could never afford at the time. I can now appreciate some of the great technology in some of those cameras and see how we ended up where we are now. It has also taught me something else: image-making hasn’t advanced as much as the big companies want us to believe.