Is there any advantage of one over the other? And why? Also how much does sensor size affect the image quality?
There have been a number of good CCD and CMOS cameras. Most medium format digital backs are and have been CCD sensors, not CMOS, so the quality possible with CCD is actually quite high,potentially. CCD's have on advantage that may or may not be exploited by the camera manufacturer; CCD cameras *may* be fitted with a hybrid mechanical/electronic CCD shutter that will allow the photographer to synchronize flash at very,very high speeds without the need for FP or High Speed Synch flash, which cuts down on the flash power. Some common CCD cameras are the Nikon D1x and the Nikon D70 and D70s and the Nikon D40 and D60, which all allow flash to be shot outdoors at high speeds like 1/1000 second. Uses for flash shot at full power in bright daylight are often found in sports shooting, like the extreme sports of skateboarding, snowboarding, ski jumping,etc. Canon's first 1D, the 4 MP body,was a CCD camera. Fuji's S3 and S5 Pro used a SuperCCD system that had dual photo-diodes under the same microlens, which gave extraordinary highlight detail. CMOS sensors have become better and cheaper over the years, and now most manufacturers have moved most of their cameras to CMOS sensors. The image processing software and hardware that comes after the sensor are probably every bit as important as the sensor itself; witness the extra quality and better high ISO performance Nikon can get from D3x,which uses the same 24 MP sensel (sic) that Sony puts in the a900.
Okay so if you were looking at two cameras and one had a 23.5x15.8 CCD sensor compared to a 22.3x14.9 CMOS sensor, which should give you better results all else being equal?
Well, everything else is never equal. If the impossible happened and some wizard waved his magic wand and two sets of 100 cameras and lenses, one set in each format, appeared where everything was equal (or proportional to the subtle format difference) the theoretical difference between the two would be so small that no one could prove the difference. The sample to sample manufacturing in each set of 100 would be larger than the different between the two sets.
I figured that would be the answer I would get, lol. The problem I have is that both the Canon and Nikon bodys feel fine when holding them so it comes down to quality of the body and photos. The three I am looking at are the new D3000, 450D (XSi) and the 500D (T1i). With the T1i now on sale they are all within $200 of each other. See my problem now?
QUOTING HERE I looked this up a while ago, so I thought I would share. "CCD (charge coupled device) and CMOS (complementary metal oxide semiconductor) image sensors are two different technologies for capturing images digitally. Each has unique strengths and weaknesses giving advantages in different applications. Neither is categorically superior to the other, although vendors selling only one technology have usually claimed otherwise." "Both types of imagers convert light into electric charge and process it into electronic signals. 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. With each pixel doing its own conversion, uniformity is lower. But the chip can be built to require less off-chip circuitry for basic operation" "CCD became dominant, primarily because they gave far superior images with the fabrication technology available. CMOS image sensors required more uniformity and smaller features than silicon wafer foundries could deliver at the time. Not until the 1990s did lithography develop to the point that designers could begin making a case for CMOS imagers again." "Both CCDs and CMOS imagers can offer excellent imaging performance when designed properly. CCDs have traditionally provided the performance benchmarks in the photographic, scientific, and industrial applications that demand the highest image quality (as measured in quantum efficiency and noise) at the expense of system size. CMOS imagers offer more integration (more functions on the chip), lower power dissipation (at the chip level), and the possibility of smaller system size, but they have often required tradeoffs between image quality and device cost." "CMOS designers have devoted intense effort to achieving high image quality, while CCD designers have lowered their power requirements and pixel sizes. As a result, you can find CCDs in low-cost low-power cellphone cameras and CMOS sensors in high-performance professional and industrial cameras, directly contradicting the early stereotypes. It is worth noting that the producers succeeding with "crossovers" have almost always been established players with years of deep experience in both technologies." "CMOS cameras may require fewer components and less power, but they still generally require companion chips to optimize image quality, increasing cost and reducing the advantage they gain from lower power consumption. CCD devices are less complex than CMOS, so they cost less to design. CCD fabrication processes also tend to be more mature and optimized; in general, it will cost less (in both design and fabrication) to yield a CCD than a CMOS imager for a specific high-performance application."
