So Hivers my camera collection has been growing over the past few years with a mix of modern M4/3 digital and old school 35mm film cameras here’s a small sample.
The one thing missing has been an early digital CCD Sensor compact, I do have a really old Sony Cybershot P120 that I use for underwater snapshots when I’m diving but it is about 30 years old and only about 5mp so something a little more modern and compact for street photography would be handy.
So when I Saw a Nikon S3500 going for sale really cheap well less than £25 in my local charity shop I thought I’d take a punt.
The screen cover was stuck open and there was no battery of SD card so I couldn’t test it but I it was worth the risk. 2 battery’s was not going to be that expensive and I have plenty of SD cards hanging around.
A quick visit to eBay and I picked up a couple of batteries and charger for £16 so it’s still a cheap deal if it all works.😃 The stuck lens cover was fixed with a a bit of patience and Isopropanol alcohol.
There is a bit of a cult following for early CCD sensor cameras as there is a lot of positive debate regarding the colour profile of the sensors being better to modern digital CMOS sensors. As a result the prices are astronomical for what is an old technology camera. A good working example of the Nikon S3500 could cost you in excess of £200 from Tokyo, Japan, the home of the used camera market.
Typical used camera shop in Tokyo from Eyexplore a very interesting company that offer walking photo tours around a number of Japanese city’s and are number 1 on on my list if I’m ever lucky enough to go to Japan. If you are planing to go to Japan their website eyexplore.com is well worth a look at. The seem cool I asked for permission to use the photo and they got back quickly with the OK.
So Hivers what are the supposed advantages of CCD sensors the technology is a bit different as I understand it ccd process the rows sequentially while cmos sensors process all the pixels in parallel. ccd typically offer higher image quality and dynamic range with lower noise and a more cinematic look, but there are always downsides, ccd sensors use a lot more power while cmos sensors are much faster and cheaper to make.
I’m certainly looking forward to using the Nikon for some street photography in Kuala Lumpur when I go next month hopefully I’ll get the chance to do some back to back comparisons with one of my more modern Olympus cameras.