Do CCD sensors create film-look images? Or is it just an Internet myth?
My latest acquisition – a cheap and cheerful Nikon AF-S 18-55mm kit lens to mate with my new, old Nikon D3000 arrived a couple of days ago. On first glance it appeared to be “as new”, such was the quality of the cosmetics, but alas, the lens was wobbly inside the barrel.
Fortunately I knew that there was a really easy fix for this common problem, and after a few minutes work I had the lens apart, and had it fixed and reassembled and now the lens works as good as new.
So now, with a dedicated lens for the D3000 (I had been using my 18-140 zoom on it), it was time to head out and grab a few photos and see whether a camera with a CCD sensor really does produce images with a film-look.
You may remember that in my first outing with the D3000 I ended up shooting with the Picture Control set to Standard by mistake.
This time I managed to set, and lock Picture Control (the OK button works wonders), on the Vivid setting. However, I was not yet ready to totally abandon shooting in RAW, so I left the Image Quality setting on NEF (RAW) + JPEG basic.
A small digression from the main thrust of this story first though.
On October 23rd a violent storm with winds up to 130km/h ripped through the area – damaging homes and other structures, and ripping up or snapping long-standing well established trees in all our parks. Subsequently all our lovely local parks were closed due to damage – bar one – Andersons Park, where the photographs for this story were taken.
Before heading to Andersons Park though, here are a few shots showing the extent of the damage to Queens Park which is right opposite my home.
Remarkably Andersons Park – a few kilometers to the north of where I live, was untouched.
And talking of untouched…all the images below are almost un-retouched…
By that I mean that the images are effectively straight out of camera, with the only changes made in DxO Photolab being:
- Lens distortion corrections;
- Leveling the image where necessary in a couple of shots;
- Cropping;
- Resizing for the web.
Having said that it is probably a good time to tell you that I am a DxO affiliate so if you buy any software from DxO using any links on my site I may get a small commission, but at no extra cost to you. Take advantage of DxO’s Black Friday sale. Use the code RickH15 at the checkout and receive little extra discount on the Black Friday prices.
Now some pictures…
Anderson Park House – first glimpse was a “warm-up” shot to make sure all my in-camera settings were correct. As it turns out they weren’t – see more below…
Yep – this Gateway to the bush walk is bound to keep people out of the bush…not!
The rear LCD on the D3000 is pretty low resolution compared with my D7500 and all other modern cameras so it can be a bit hard to see for sure that your image capture is spot on.
I didn’t realize, for example, until I got home and looked at the photos on my computer, that the colours SOOC are very, for want of a better term, lush and rich – but not harsh. Greens in particular are extremely vibrant, but what I noticed from A quiet little corner on the bush walk is that there seems to be a nice gentle transition from the deep shadows through to lighter areas, and through into almost blown-out areas too.
Talking of green, I’m not sure that the D3000’s auto white balance setting can be trusted at times.
Consider the two images below for example. The left hand one was shot using Auto WB, while the one on the right was taken using the Cloudy setting. Maybe selecting Shade instead of Cloudy would have produced a better result.
Different angles, but certainly the image on the right looks more natural – more like the way I actually saw it at the time.
Again – notice the over-greeness (do you like my technical photographic jargon) in this shot Leaf in a tree.The same over-greenness is obvious in this quick take of an Overgrown tree stump.
Both were taken with the camera set to AWB.
Yes, I could go to the RAW file and adjust the white balance, but I decided not to. I’ll just need to remember to set the white balance manually going forward if I continue to shoot JPEG only.
Once out of the heavily shaded bush walk however, AWB did its job well. I love the bright, vibrant colours in these next quick snaps.Thinking back to when I clicked the shutter for Children’s playground, I feel the colours are pretty accurate – maybe just a wee bit more vibrant than the real thing.
The same can be said about Colours in the park below.
Just a few more photos in a small gallery to go before I share my early thoughts about shooting with a camera with a CCD sensor.
Conclusions – or rather thoughts…
I am delighted with the look and quality of JPEGs from the Nikon D3000.
The colours are rich and vibrant – possibly a little bit too rich or over saturated, over vibrant in some images but always pleasing.
Have I seen any hint of the “film-like, organic” images that cameras with a CCD supposedly produce?
Well after shooting about a hundred or so photos using the D3000 so far, no – not really – I wouldn’t say the images are film-like. There is, however, a distinctly different vibe, for want of a better term, about the JPEGs from my D3000 compared with those from my D7500. I’m not sure that organic is the right word for the D3000 JPEGs – after all what does organic really mean in this context?
I feel it is more a case of there being a subtle, almost implied, hint of softness about the photos. Not softness as in not sharp – but softness as in the overall aesthetics of the images.
Perhaps it’s a mix of the colours the in-camera processing gives the images, combined with the quality of the 18-55 kit lens…not that I have any concerns about the kit lens quality.
Maybe it’s just my imagination…maybe I’m making all this up!
So do CCD sensors create film-look images – or is just another internet myth?
Maybe some cameras with CCD sensors do – but perhaps most don’t. Maybe I might buy an old digicam with a CCD sensor and see if that is any different from my Nikon D3000 – but then again maybe I won’t.
Thanks for following my ramblings if you’ve made it this far.
I’d love to hear your thoughts and feelings on this topic.