AGFA. CCD vs CMOS

My compact camera just broke. I say just broke but in reality it slowly died for a few years now. I dropped it too many times, it was all bumped at edges and the lens lid wouldn't close anymore except if i hit it strongly. Now it refuses to focus anymore no matter what. Goodbye Coolpix L18! It was one of the best spent 100 dollars!

I needed badly a small camera to fit in my pocket and still make quality pictures when i couldn't take the big DSLR with me (Sony DSLR300 that by the way has a 2/3 CCD sensor).

And started looking around. And a brand popped on the screen. An old aquiantance. In the 70s at the Children's Club in Câmpulung Suceava we used to have 16 mm film cameras that where using the AGFA brand films. They were also the magnetic tapes for recorders. And i looked in the wikipedia and saw that there is still such a brand, as a holding company, still in Germany. Most of the cameras in US today are Japanese. Never saw a compact camera brand from Germany until now.

So i ordered at Amazon an AGFAPHOTO Digital PRECISA 1430 for 75 bucks. At AGFA site it is 59,95 €. THEN i downloaded the manual and looked at the specs.

Many of the spec are smilar or slightly below competition at that price.

But a few things caught my eyes. 7 elements lens. Live Histogram. CCD sensor. Artificial Intelligence Metering (wow, what can that be ? LOL).

I keep saying for years now that CCD sensor always seemed better to me. Since there is not any on pixels processing, the signal is sent outside the sensor area for processing, the signal capturing area of the pixel is bigger than at CMOS because it's not used for other components but just for light capturing. Don't know exactly but probably twice bigger. So it captures more light and there is less noise in the output signal. Probably the equivalent CMOS sensors would be twice bigger as area. According to this theory a good CCD 2/3 sensor could give better quality pictures than a full frame CMOS but that's my opinion of course. On CCD there is also more signal uniformity because of not processing each pixel on its own different components. There are more arguments here, you can read them in the site framed at the bottom. Until i get it, without even having it on my hand i dare recommend this to all. I don't know yet if they could improve color depth as well on any compact but i will come back with that.

For my Romanian friends, i see there it is not available yet in 14 MP but there is in 12. Who needs those megapixels anyway?



"In a CCD sensor, every pixel's charge is transferred through a very limited number of output nodes (often just one) to be converted to voltage, buffered, and sent off-chip as an analog signal. All of the pixel can be devoted to light capture, and the output's uniformity (a key factor in image quality) is high. In a CMOS sensor, each pixel has its own charge-to-voltage conversion, and the sensor often also includes amplifiers, noise-correction, and digitization circuits, so that the chip outputs digital bits. These other functions increase the design complexity and reduce the area available for light capture."



Got it today 10-05. QED or this is why they say 1 picture=1000 words.

From kitchen window, Dec.1 2012. clickable! (try middle click)

Directly

http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-OXKFe7QkBNk/UL_nZjCYnwI/AAAAAAAABOM/YY2oSIkBJHs/s1600/APDC0035.JPG