I give up. I mean, really, what if anything is lacking in the technical aspects of the Nikon D60 with 35mm f1.8 lens with which I took this photograph in 2010?
What has changed since 2008 when Nikon released the camera?
Well, one thing that has changed is the post-processing software. It has made it possible to pull out a more detailed and striking image.
The pre-processor I used to process this was not available in 2010 when I shot this image.
With DxO PureRaw 4 I am able to convert the RAW image to really pull out its qualities.
It does a better than Photoshop does.
And if I want I can then pull the image into Photoshop to make any other changes I want to make.
In fact I didn’t make any further changes. I just brought the image into Photoshop to re-size it to 1500px wide for the Web.
CCD versus CMOS
Whether CCD or CMOS technology, a camera sensor is a silicon chip that contains an array of photosensitive sites. The question is how the camera’s processor interprets the light that hits the photosensitive sites on the sensor.
The Nikon D60 has a CCD sensor. CCD stands for ‘charged coupled device’. Light hits the sensor and its output is converted to a digital signal that is then read by the processor from each photo-site sequentially to construct an image.
The Nikon D3000 that was released in 2009 was the last camera with a CCD sensor that Nikon released.
After that their cameras had CMOS sensors. The reason for that change was speed.
CMOS stands for ‘complementary metal-oxide semiconductor.’ A CMOS sensor converts the charge from a photosensitive pixel to a voltage simultaneously at each pixel site. The signal is then converted by row and column at high speed.
The bottom line is that CCDs are slower to read out, consume more energy than CMOS sensors, and are more expensive to make.
But they have higher capability to send a clean signal to the card and according to some photographers, the photographs have a special look that cannot be reproduced by CMOS sensors.
Putting It To The Test
All my newer cameras have CMOS sensors, so the plan was to pick up a Nikon D60 or maybe a Nikon D3000 cheaply and compare photos taken with the two systems, and see what I think.
The D3000 is basically the same camera as the D60, with a CCD sensor and a couple of tweaks to the autofocus system. So either of those will do the job.
I already have a Nikon DX AF-S 35mm 1.8G lens, and I found a D3000 for sale for very little money.
Most dSLR cameras are very cheap compared to mirrorless models. And now that all of the main manufacturers have stopped making dSLRs, my bet is that prices for dSLRs will start to rise when scarcity becomes more valued in the eyes of photographers than the downsides of dSLRs compared to mirrorless cameras.
Before buying the camera I doubled-checked that my lens will focus on the Nikon D3000.
That is not a given because unlike its bigger brothers, the D3000 does not have a motor in the body. So, it cannot power the lens.
The AF-S 35mm 1.8G lens itself has a motor inside it. That is what the AF-S designation means, and it means that it will autofocus with the D3000.
I Now Have A Nikon D3000
So, now that I have bought a D3000, here is a shot of a bar of soap in its wrapper, on a duvet cover. When I have the time and the light is right I will shoot the same scene with this and with a camera with a CMOS sensor, and we shall see what we shall see.
I processed it in Photoshop rather than DxO PureRaw simply because it is the first thing I thought to do. When I do a proper comparison of CCD versus CMOS I shall use DxO PureRaw.
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