CCD or CMOS

[Mike Krumlauf]

We all know where the manufacturers have gone and i'm not even trying to get into the debate about if you can still get freelance work with CCD gear (which you can btw :b) but I am interested to see how many people here still enjoy the look from CCD chips (regardless of the size) over CMOS. I happen to be one of these people. The color, contrast, global shutter.. CCDs to me seem to give off a more pleasing look.

 

[NorBro]

It's difficult to assess because there aren't any high end 4K-6K-8K CCD cinema cameras being made to be compared with the best-of-the-best (ARRI, RED, etc).

Any CCDs of yesteryear are extremely dated with their look/resolution compared to modern day motion pictures, so a lot of our brain analyzation could be influenced by nostalgia.

 

[morgan_moore]

It's difficult to assess because there aren't any high end 4K-6K-8K CCD cinema cameras being made to be compared with the best-of-the-best (ARRI, RED, etc).

Any CCDs of yesteryear are extremely dated with their look/resolution compared to modern day motion pictures, so a lot of our brain analyzation could be influenced by nostalgia.

FYI there are loads of high res CCD, my old Sinar 54LV digital stills back for example could pull a frame in 2003 that is way beyond any digital motion I have used.

At 25ISO and 40 frames per minute it was not highly suitable for filming though

 

[IronFilm]

We all know where the manufacturers have gone and i'm not even trying to get into the debate about if you can still get freelance work with CCD gear (which you can btw :b)

Just because you can doesn't mean you should!

As would a CCD as your main/only camera optimize your earnings and career? Nope.

 

[NorBro]

FYI there are loads of high res CCD, my old Sinar 54LV digital stills back for example could pull a frame in 2003 that is way beyond any digital motion I have used.

At 25ISO and 40 frames per minute it was not highly suitable for filming though

FYI, modern cinema cameras, not stills cameras. [As mentioned.]

 

[firehawk]

I'm still a CCD fan. As noted previously you can't really do a fair comparison now with CCD's having mostly been abandoned by manufacturers and therefore CMOS having years of advancement since then. Is there even a 4K CCD camera in existance to compare to a 4K CMOS camera?
Having said all that I still like the old CCD camera color science and global shutters. For example my old Panasonic HMC150s while being low res, still have beautiful skin tones. I like them better than my newer cameras.
Plus my old CCD action cameras didn't skew or jello like my new ones do, though everything else is better about the new ones...

 

[QuickHitRecord]

I like the CCD look too, for personal projects. I recently did some research and found a 2011 fixed-lens bridge camera from Panasonic that has a 1/2.33" single CCD sensor (which is bigger than most consumer/prosumer models and basically the same size as Super 8mm film) and full manual control. It has some gotchas but I've been enjoying it. Adding some blurring/grain/flicker gives me some pretty interesting results:

 

[Samuel H]

Unless you're designing a camera, I think this is not a very relevant question: differences between cameras can be much bigger than differences between sensors. You may like a particular CCD camera but not others, and same for CMOS.

 

[Spartacus]

I don't think that much about CCDs anymore. When MacGregor started the F35 craze here, I so badly wanted one too. Even his "somewhere in LA test shots" had that ccd creaminess so many videos shot on modern CMOS cameras lacked. That he even lugged that thing through the Sahara dessert, shows how much one believes a certain camera (look) adds to the final film.
That being said, I believe the documentary would just be as impressive if it had been shot on a C300mII or an Amira.
So I simply stopped romanticising the CCD look and focused my unproductive wonderings on why I prefer the look and feel of certain CMOS cams over others.
I heard others use the time to just shoot something, I sit butt naked on my couch and look up Alexa vs RED videos on Youtube.
Oh well...

 

[Tamerlin]

I don't think that much about CCDs anymore. When MacGregor started the F35 craze here, I so badly wanted one too. Even his "somewhere in LA test shots" had that ccd creaminess so many videos shot on modern CMOS cameras lacked. That he even lugged that thing through the Sahara dessert, shows how much one believes a certain camera (look) adds to the final film.
That being said, I believe the documentary would just be as impressive if it had been shot on a C300mII or an Amira.
So I simply stopped romanticising the CCD look and focused my unproductive wonderings on why I prefer the look and feel of certain CMOS cams over others.
I heard others use the time to just shoot something, I sit butt naked on my couch and look up Alexa vs RED videos on Youtube.
Oh well...

CCD progress tapered off once CMOS became competitive with it, because of manufacturing advantages. Now though given the current state of sensor technology, it's time to let CCD have its place in imaging history and move on.

It was great, but now CMOS has taken over and is here to stay until something better arrives.

Then we'll see the same pointless debate yet again.