Retro
Colours
Since collecting retro digital cameras (mostly DLSRs) and combining that with my other hobby of photographing squirrels, I started to notice a pattern. The older cameras were producing better colours. This was especially noticeable in the summer, where everything was lit by green ambient bounce-light. Having tested four vintage digital cameras that all had CCD sensors, I assumed it was this causing the difference. However, after posing my findings on Reddit, several people informed me that the difference was caused by something else. Coincidentally, large changes in the "colour filter arrays" (CFA) and "colour-science" occurred around the same time as the switch from CCD to CMOS.
Modern Cameras
To illustrate what sparked off this project, here are some sample images from my modern mirrorless cameras (Sony A7, Sony A9, Sony A1, Sony ZV-E10) which are of course using CMOS sensors. To address the elephant in the room here, Sony cameras do have a reputation for having a bit of a green colour-cast, but that is generally fixable as I understand it and the newest ones have addressed this. The "Summer Squirrel Problem" (as I'm going to call it), is not fixable in post, no matter what how much you try. I will state when the camera was released for each image, so you can see if there's much of a difference...
Vintage Cameras
While editing an image from the Nikon D1, the colour separation of the red squirrel's fur against the green foliage jumped out at me. I simply could not get this pop with modern cameras, no matter what I did with processing. Now that you have the colours from those modern cameras in your mind, here are a few from the older CCD ones. In order, these cameras are: Nikon D1, Fujifilm Finepix S2 Pro & Nikon D200. Those are 2.7, 6 and 10 megapixels (respectively).
Sony A390 [2010]
This Sony is the last CCD camera that Sony made. Apart from a 14 megapixel APS-C sesnor it also featured full autofocus in "live-view" mode, with a tilting LCD screen and in-body image stabilization. On top of all that, it also supported some interesting fast Zeiss lenses, like this 85mm f/1.4 Planar. For this next phase of the test I did a comparison between this camera and the Sony A1.
Sony A390 + Zeiss Planar 85mm f/1.4
I did my best to match each image from the two cameras / sensor types. The same squirrel, at the same time, in the same lighting, position and pose. Unfortunately I had to use different lenses here, but both were high quality Sony 85mm prime lenses, so hopefully that helped to keep some level of consistency. 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...
Red squirrels were looking far more red on these older cameras. This was just what I was getting on the Nikon D1. It has been a conscious thought that something was lacking on the modern camera's colours. Previously, they felt washed out, like looking through a brown haze. The older cameras are providing 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. Images from the older camera's might be over-saturated at times, but here they just make everything look better.
OK, One More
Both of these images were taken from the same position. The A1 images will be cropped down to match the APS-C area. 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.
Next
The next phase in my testing will be to add samples from a Canon 5D, Nikon D700 and Sony A900 to the mix of comparisons. Those are all early full frame CMOS cameras (2005-2008). I also intend to colour calibrate all of the next sample images, try to use the same lens, and experiment more with processing. I will update this article once all the testing and processing is done (after the summer)...