Michael Johnston has made another intelligent article, questioning the need for more sharpness always.
One of his commenters said:
""The sharper the better" is a truism that plagues the photography world and chatter like a disease."
Yeah. Our minds too. Mine at least. I know better. Many of my favorite pictures in the world are not sharp at all. And yet I can't seem to let go of the constant quest for sharpness and detail.
Some part of it is that sometimes it really is a plus, and can add artistic value.
But another part is that it takes discipline and knowledge to achieve, and once you start on that, the quest takes on its own life, and you start to equate higher numbers as "better" overall. Sort of like the guy who is on a road-trip holiday, and he thinks that the more distance he covers in a day, the better he is doing...
6 comments:
Very nice example, thanks, Darren.
It's interesting, because when I was young, it seems to me that the only possible purpose to put up with the struggles and expense of large formats was to get higher resolution. But it's not always used for that.
And in fact the effect is often almost the opposite, because you get much smaller depth-of-field, and you have to used longer shutter times because of slower lenses.
I would really struggle emotionally to use a lens which I knew did not give anything close to the resolution of the format I'm using... it's interesting.
In fact, Mike Johnston has an old article where he points out some of these issues, and which helped me realise that maybe the different "qualities" of different formats could be more important than the "numbers" issue of pure resolution.
If I recall correctly, the article was meant to be the "con" argument in a "pro and con" double-article feature in a magazin, and they never printed the "pro" side... :-)
Perhaps I have a little bias here ... my all-time favourite camera fodder being of the female persuasion ... but too much sharpness can definitely be a bad thing.
Working in a studio (in a past life!) pre-digital, one of the main problems faced was too much sharpness being rendered, particularly when taking close-up / beauty-type shots.
I can probably count on my fingers the number of people who could stand up to this type of 'intimacy', and a talented make-up artist was usually not available.
The answer, invariably, was usually the use of some form of filtration on the camera lens (or under the enlarger lens!)to soften the image.
Ironic really, when you are using Canon 'L' series lenses ..... :-)
My first digital camera produced 5 MP images, and even at that size, if you wanted a flattering image, you had to soften it somehow ... with the current range of digital SLRs (AND a decent lens), you simply get way too much detail ... pores, the faintest of wrinkles, rough skin where you don't really want to see it ... and don't get me started on bikini lines! :-)
Yes, I like sharpness, when it is sought / needed / expected, but unless I'm photographing something inanimate or technical, pictures ARE often way too sharp!
Good point. It's really only children who have the skin for it.
I am just starting photography and I struggled to get sharpness it all seems to be to do with aperture, mega pixels, and shutter speed.
Probably the lens and the megapixels are all right, if it is a newish camera. Sharpness problems are most likely related to too slow shutter speeds (camera shake) or off-focus (keep an eye on your autofocus, learn to lock it).
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