CCD
Cameras
This first vintage DSLR was going to be the cheapest option in the Budget Camera section. Instead, I decided to give CCD cameras their own page. For the first two, their optical only viewfinders, slow and noisy focusing made them difficult to seriously recommend for photographing squirrels well anyway. The third featured camera here is a little more interesting, but we'll get to that in a bit...
Fujifilm S2 Pro (2002)
I started photographing squirrels with a Fujifilm Finepix S2 Pro around 22 years ago. This was my first Digital SLR back in 2002. Although it's now considered vintage, I remember the excitement of using this camera when it was cutting edge. It's quite difficult to use optical viewfinders to photograph squirrels from their perspective (low angles), especially after using something like the Sony A1 (with its ridiculous speed, magical focusing and tilting live-view display)! There is something these cameras offer over a modern mirrorless one, and no, I'm not talking about the global shutter.
Fujifilm S2 Pro + Nikkor 85mm f/1.8
This once €2,000 camera can be picked up for the price of a few rolls of film today, although these old Fuji's manage to hold their price a little better than Nikon and Canon DSLRs of the same period, for some reason. A total of €200 with an 85mm prime lens might seem like great value, but this is mostly for my nerdy, nostalgia fun. You could get a better sensor in a newer DSLR for not too much more money. Considering usability when photographing squirrels, I would probably steer people towards mirrorless cameras unless... OK, before I get on to that, I want to showcase an even older DSLR...
Nikon D1 (1999)
Here's another interesting digital camera from my collection - the first purpose built DSLR. Professional digital cameras had only been converted from analogue film SLRs before this model. This 25-year-old, 2.7 megapixel APS-C CCD camera ultimately led to the death of Kodak's pro camera division. Nikon came out years later and revealed that all the D1 models actually featured a 10 megapixel sensor underneath, using a Sony A7S III style 'quad beyer' type sensor, to reduce noise. Unlike the D1X that came out a year later, there is no way to extract the full resolution files from this one, but this is another fascinating aspect of its iconic history.
Nikon D1 + Nikkor 85mm f/1.4 D
You might think that having a tiny fraction of a modern smartphone's resolution would make it irrelevant today. However, it perfectly illustrates how lenses are still the most important aspect of any camera. Another interesting observation is that I can still see the difference in lens quality through 2k web images. High pixel counts feel highly overrated... says the hypocrite with a Sony A1...
CCD sensors haven't been used for almost fifteen years now. Although image quality has generally improved since then, there are still some scenarios where their images look more pleasing. One such scenarios for me is red squirrels against heavy foliage in indirect lighting. CMOS images were struggling to stand out simply by adjusting their white balance and saturation, often feeling washed out by a dull yellow veil. When viewing a similar scene taken with the Nikon D1, it just suddenly popped, with no editing at all. I had long dismissed some people's preference for CCD colours, but I was starting to pay more attention now. Despite having owned a Fujifilm S2 Pro and a Nikon D200 for several years, going back to these older cameras for this subject was a bit of a revelation. Using optical only viewfinder DSLRs was a bit of a challenge for shooting squirrels the way I wanted to, so if I was going to continue down this path I wanted something a little different...
Sony A390 (2010)
After doing some research, I discovered that Some of Sony's last CCD DSLRs had a respectable 14mp resolution, full autofocus in live-view with a tilt screen and in-body image stabilization (A350, A380, A390). It was time to buy a slightly newer old camera... Another benefit to this mount is some very interesting fast lenses from Zeiss (an 85mm Planar & 135mm Sonnar).
Sony A390 + Zeiss Planar 85mm f/1.4
I did my best to match each image from the two sensor types. The same squirrel, at the same time, in the same lighting, position and pose. To do this, I switched between the Sony A390 and the Sony A1 (yes, it was awkward). Unfortunately I needed to use different lenses, but both were high quality 85mm prime lenses, so hopefully that helps to keep some level of consistency. I have observed these difficult colours from every lens that I have tested on this and other modern CMOS platforms.
Both images were taken in RAW format and manually edited in Adobe Camera RAW to provide the best combination of White Balance Temperature and Tint. OK, so what you think?...
That's 3 for 3 now. Red squirrels are actually red on CCD sensors. I was surprised by just how much this validated what I was seeing from the old Nikon D1 CCD image (above). It's also exactly what I felt was lacking from my modern camera's images in this flat forest lighting, before I even looked at CCD cameras. In reality, the squirrel's fur colour stood out more from the surrounding foliage. After all, red and green are supposed to be complimentary colours, right? Previously, they felt washed out, like looking through a brown haze. The CCD image is providing way more of that separation, a more saturated red, without looking contaminated by green. If I try simply boosting saturation of a CMOS image, their fur goes a rather toxic yellowy orange unless I also carefully edit the hues as well. The CCD images might be over-saturated at times, but here they look great, and the hues feel more faithful.
OK, One More
Although I don't think the slightly different camera settings on the previous samples had an adverse effect on the colours in any meaningful way, I wanted to try again with a different setup. This time I wanted to put the fantastic Sigma DG DN 85mm f/1.4 ART lens on the Sony A1. I left the A mount Zeiss Planar on the Sony A390 as I don't have any alternatives in that mount. As before; both images were taken from the same position, and the A1 images will be cropped down to the APS-C area to match. I managed to get the poses even closer this time, and each image was only a few seconds apart. Both images used exactly the same settings, so this will also be an interesting comparison for exposure. The white balance for these will be calibrated to the same area.
Any more calibration than this will require setting up a proper colour profile from the exact area and time, which I will try eventually. Although that would make the colours nearly identical for any camera, the interesting thing there will be how much did they change from the default profile. At the end of the day nobody should be expected to use a calibrated profile for every shot they take, so this will be less meaningful, but I am still curious what will happen. I just need to remember to take the colour passport with me...
CCD Colour Summary
I do feel like the Sony A1's colours are more naturally saturated and possibly more accurate in general. However, the CCD sensor's ability to pull out scattered translucent reds through a heavy green cast in indirect lighting was undeniably interesting. Ultimately, whether you like the punchy saturated colours (especially reds) of CCD images in general is up to you, but there is definitely something different about them.