If you love film but hate the cost, there's a relatively inexpensive way to achieve a very similar end result without the need to spend lots of your hard earned money on expensive film stocks and processing. Even of you do the processing yourself, as I do, there is still the cost of the film stock and with films like Pro-H costing around £20 a reel of 36, finding an alternative is a goal for many.

One answer to this dilemma is to revisit a time before CMOS existed, a time just before the ultimate demise of film. That time, around the beginning of the new century, was inhabited by amazingly good cameras of every type all utilising the latest in CCD technology. One of the leaders in its field at that time was Kodak and even today, cameras which utilise Kodak CCD sensors are highly thought of and sought after.

Notable cameras that use Kodak sensors are of course, many of the early and indeed later Kodak camera models, for example the Kodak Easyshare DX6490, a diminutive camera capable of achieving incredible filmlike results, and the much later Kodak PixPro AZ421 which has an incredible 42x stabilised optical zoom and a 1/2.3" CCD sensor. This powerhouse of a camera cost me just £39 on Ebay recently. In fact, of the twelve CCD cameras I bought over the summer, the average price was just £29 and these included the Olympus Evolt E-500 (which again uses a Kodak CCD senor). the Nikon D200, another camera with a Kodak sensor, two Kodak DX6490's, one just £5 on Ebay, the Kodak AZ421 mentioned earlier. I also bought a Fuji Finepix S200EXR, this was just £19 GBP in A1 condition complete with a LowPro bag and battery, a Nikon E7600 for just £5 GBP, a Canon S5 IS for £19 GBP and an Olympus C760 for £19 GBP. Finally I bought a Casio EZ-750 and the even better, if that is possible, Casio EZ-850, along with their docking stations, for £10 GBP and £5 GBP respectively All take amazingly good photos with the lower resolution CCD sensor versions getting uncannily close to film results. The most expensive cameras I bought were the Olympus Evolt E-500, the Nikon D200 and the Kodak AX421 which all came in at around £39 GBP each. All of the DSLR's came with a lens, some with cases. All take fabulous photos fill of rich colours and tones which modern CMOS cameras simply can't get close to without substantial editing.

The image gallery below is a mix of the images from all of these CCD cameras, which, over the summer of 2023, were extensively used. Editing in all cases has been kept to a minimum. Some cropping, some developed to better fit the histogram to the extremes, some edited just for effect. 

Just a quick teaser, I will be talking through the process of using On1 PhotoRAW 2022 and Affinity Photo to turn a old scanned B&W image into a resized, colour accurate image of that period (WW2) over at The Creative Camera very soon. In the meantime, pop over and have a browse through some of my other photography related articles.