Photo Friday

I cleaned out a closet this past week with the vague thought that I might have an old CCD sensor point-and-shoot camera. It turns out that I have TWO, both Nikon CoolPix: a P5100 and P7100. The former doesn’t seem to have a battery, but the latter, despite having been used quite vigorously on a number of archaeological projects seems to still be completely functional. Because I’m a hopeless trend follower, I got curious about CCD sensor technology. CCD censors were common before 2013ish when the current CMOS sensor became the norm. Camera companies — especially Kodak and Fuji, but also Nikon and Canon — implemented CCD sensors in distinct ways. In fact, the sensor that Nikon used in the P7100 was the same 10 megapixel sensor that Canon used in the cult-favorite Powershot G12 (probably made by Sony). What makes this sensor interesting, though, is how these cameras convert images from it into jpegs! Those who know about such things have claimed with some authority that the jpegs these…