Serious question, does the CCD sensor render better than CMOS ?

[Steve Ricoh]

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I know 'better' is subjective, but I'm interested from members having both systems.

I've read about CCD having better colours, but then again M10 owners / shooters are singing the praises of the latest CMOS and internal processing engine.

 

Already having an M240 I'd probably like to try a CCD rather than another CMOS, but then again I've recently got back into film and I'm enjoying the proocess which adds a great deal to image making as a whole.

[antigallican]

Definitely different - I have an M9 and an SL. The M9's character seems to me to get its best outings when there is plenty of red in the picture and plenty of light - but that's not to say it struggles in other circumstances. 

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[a.noctilux]

Different for sure, but I've never seen "better" either way CCD/CMOS.

I use till now M8/M9/MM/M240/M262/M10 and can not tell "which is better", only differences, even then it's very small margin.

(also Sony, Nikon and more -> there the differences are biggest but not better or worse than Leica)

 

Photographed subjects matter more than CCD/CMOS, in my practice.

[Peter H]

No.

 

I've never seen any evidence of it anyway. Fond as I was of my M9, the M240 was better (not just different, in my opinion) and the M10 better still.

[Luke_Miller]

I have not noticed a difference having experienced the transition from CCD sensors to CMOS sensors with both Nikon and Leica.  Not to say it doesn't exist, but I have not seen it.  I did a pretty detailed comparison between my (M9) Monochrom and M-246 and the only differences I could see were due to the higher resolution and improved ISO performance of the M-246.

 

I also did not see a change in color rendering between my CCD and CMOS bodies.  My impression is the camera makers have a "look" they want to achieve and do a pretty good job in creating it regardless of the sensor technology.  The same skin tone issues I had with my M9 carried forward to the M-240.  Fixed with a custom camera color profile in Lightroom and a preset in C1.

Edited September 1, 2017 by Luke_Miller

[Guest Nowhereman]

No....I've never seen any evidence of it anyway. Fond as I was of my M9, the M240 was better (not just different, in my opinion) and the M10 better still.

 

Peter - In my view it's not that simple. I don't want to get into the M9 vs the M240, of which there have been discussions ad nauseam. But after I got the M10, I had a glance at all my earlier M9 shots and found, overall, a look much more reminiscent of transparency film than color film. A photographer with great color sensibility, Charles Peterson, has said that the M9 has a magic, or an umami, that is more difficult to achieve with the M10, either with custom camera profiles or with skilled and careful processing. 

 

I much prefer the M10 to the M9 in terms handling, non-squishy shutter; larger, clearer and more accurate viewfinder and rangefinder; less incidence of dust on the sensor; greater dynamic range; better automatic white balance; and substantially better high-iso performance. Yet, I still have to work more to achieve the look I liked with the M9.

 

Indeed, this made me think in the OP of this thread that its worthwhile to shoot transparency film occasionally so that one can keep the transparency look in mind much more easily when processing a digital images. Ironically, my feeling is that shooting slide film occasionally can improve one's processing of digital color.

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[jdlaing]

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No.

[Ko.Fe.]

M10 has nice rendering on regular ISO.

 

But I'll answer to what is in the title. So, here I dare:

 

It is still different rendering and it depends on what you prefer. I prefer film photography and very detailed digital images. My M-E gives me most detailed images I ever seen (due to particular CCD and FF) at low ISO. And it acts with higher ISO just like films I use. Higher ISO is - more grain comes. I really like M-E 1600-2500 ISO BW.  And to be honest I don't really need it to be higher. No use for me.

 

I also see no personal needs to have 2017 7K$ camera which will do nothing dramatically better than my purchased new for 3K$ M-E in 2016, for me. My days of ISO6400 and higher are over long time ago. Did it with DSLRs, don't need this kind of photography for now. If not enough light, I'm using current tiny TTL Leica flash, paid for it 200$ as for ex-demo. 

[fsprow]

Sometimes I have felt that the CCD imager is more " transparency film like" than CMOS, but when I challenged myself to identify the source (CCD versus CMOS) I failed miserably.  In any case, any "corrections" are easily made in PP.  

 

For me the advantage of high ISO availability with CMOS makes the choice clear.