do you spend a lot of time worrying about sharpness ?

removed account4 · Aug 14, 2016

so many threads on photography websites ( not just this one )
are all about sharpness, micro contrast, apparent sharpness
modern sharp lenses, ancient sharp lenses, the best developer and technique for
getting beautifully sharp negatives and equally sharp prints.
there has also been sort of a movement
maybe it is anti-digggital, who knows, but it is about pictorialism, soft focus portraits, bokeh,
landscapes that remind us of paintings, color slides or prints that are soft like pastels
where sharpness, micro contrast and everything else i previously mentioned have absolutely
nothing to do with the imagery ( or maybe they do ? )

do you spend a lot of time worrying about sharpness? do you stop down to a small aperture, use a
tripod, low iso film, developers like xtol or dinafine or ?, printing masks to get beautiful sharp prints
tha have a (sometimes) extreme graphic quality to them, or do you just not worry about it .. sometimes
low iso, sometimes high, sometimes stand develop so you have mushy tones, use fstops that are larger apertures, shoot through ziplock bags, or whatever else it might take to give you the opposite of sharpness.

if you make sharp images, what do you do to get your results?
if you don't do sharp, what do you do to get those results?

Peter Schrager · Aug 14, 2016

a lousy photograph is not helped by either sharp or unsharp
just my 2 cents!!
best, peter

Moopheus · Aug 14, 2016

I guess it depends on expectations--when I am shooting with my Agfa Clack, I am not worrying about sharpness so much. Maybe a little more with my Hasselblad. Do I worry about squeezing every last grain of sharpness? No, not really.

cliveh · Aug 14, 2016

Sharpness is a bourgeois concept
– Henri Cartier Bresson

pdeeh · Aug 14, 2016

when I hear the word 'sharpness', I reach for my revolver.

MattKing · Aug 14, 2016

I'm of the same view about "impact" - and I think there is a connection between the two.

I like high acutance (a major component of apparent sharpness) when it is revealed by careful examination.

Sort of "subtle sharpness".

RSalles · Aug 14, 2016

Jnanian,

For my entire use and opinion, it's a question strictly linked with the type of image I'm trying to achieve. In general, for landscape work the sharpness and flare control are a plus, I can enlarge an image really bigger and the details can be seen from far. For portraiture, in general is the opposite: I think the last important property of a lens when making a portrait is sharpness. The plane transition, bokeh, speed, all this comes at first place. By the other side, the negative size is also a point to consider and, in general I'm much more concerned about the lens sharpness of a 35mm negative then a lens for making a sheet film of 4x5. For sure I would like to have a set of apo-lenses and 2 couples or more of Apo-Lanthar laying around, but I can have immense satisfaction using a 150 years old Dallmeyer also, which is not sharp, and must be handle with care as it flares as the hell, but has a personality of its own,

Cheers,

Renato

darkosaric · Aug 14, 2016

Don't care much: 35mm, no tripod, Rodinal, all B&W films are good for me. Trying to get focus right, to get minimum flare, shutter speed at 1/60s or faster, and do my best in the printing stage.

Terry Breedlove · Aug 14, 2016

I spend more time worrying about just getting the shot than I do about measurbaiters online.

Pioneer · Aug 14, 2016

Nah. 90% of my photography is done without a tripod so sharpness can't be a major issue for me.

Actually, for some photographs, a little bit of softness is a plus. Of course, that's where the disagreements start with the numbers people. How much is a little.

pdeeh · Aug 14, 2016

to unpack my earlier reply a bit more ...

for the first 30-odd years of taking photos, I don't recall ever once thinking about sharpness. it just wasn't a concern or an aim.

then when I started shooting digital, I suddenly found I was all over forums talking and worrying about it and staring anxiously into the corners of my snaps "at 100%" looking for details I could never see when I was actually at the scene photographed.

at the beginning of my return to film use a few years ago, I brought that same mentality to film use - zooming into scans, trying super-acutance developers and whatnot.

after a year or two the whole thing seemed pretty pointless and these days I just can't give a flying feck really.

and the fact is, if someone looked at one of my snaps and told me "that's not sharp enough", I'd be inclined to think they were looking for the wrong things ...

Photo Engineer · Aug 14, 2016

John, no I don't, do you?

removed account4 · Aug 14, 2016

Photo Engineer said:
John, no I don't, do you?

it depends,
sometimes i am looking for sharp detail driven graphic imagery when i do photography
for archives, ... when i really don't want to make a photograph open to interpretation, because it is a
record / document of what is or isn't there.
and sometimes i am not after sharp detailed images because their point is that they might
be about a something else.

NedL · Aug 14, 2016

Short answer: no.

dpurdy · Aug 14, 2016

There is an aesthetic value to clarity and sharpness that some people don't seem to get and other people fall in love with. If you are into it you can sometimes create a seemingly super reality that has a big impact on people. I have always loved etchy sharpness and the sense of the realty of the thing on and in my prints. There are also times when I think I have gotten something too sharp. It depends on where your aesthetic intent is.
It seems also according to all the threads relating to this that non sharpness people are more likely to insult or disparage sharpness people, however I don't see it go the other way except perhaps for toy camera users. It is possible that the aesthetics in sharpness and clarity are harder to grasp than those of an interesting moment.

cliveh · Aug 14, 2016

The value of sharpness is very dependent on the image and style you wish to show, be it an impressionistic dreamlike image like an ethereal fashion shot or a bear catching a salmon in a national geographic shot and there are several million variations between the two.

Terry Breedlove · Aug 14, 2016

[QUOTE=" fact is, if someone looked at one of my snaps and told me "that's not sharp enough", I'd be inclined to think they were looking for the wrong things ...[/QUOTE]

Love this quote.

removed account4 · Aug 14, 2016

Terry Breedlove said:
I spend more time worrying about just getting the shot than I do about measurbaiters online.

im not sure what a measurbaiter is ?
the point of this thread isn't to throw stones at people ...

but maybe explain how one is able to get super sharp graphic images maybe from ordinary camera equipment that
doesn't have a swedish name or lenses that cost as much as a used car, and maybe on the other hand to maybe try to explain how
you might get images that aren't super sharp graphic images.

===
thanks for the responses so far !

Theo Sulphate · Aug 14, 2016

jnanian said:
whats a measurbaiter ?

The term was coined by Ken Rockwell, I believe (*). Basically, someone who is so absorbed in resolution charts, MTF curves, micro contrast, etc., that they never look at the photo as a whole, or maybe they spend $10,000 on equipment just to mostly photograph test charts. Show them a wonderful photo taken by HCB, and they'll pull out their loupe to examine the grain. They are the wankers you don't want to talk photography with.

Anyway - your original question is excellent and complex.

For my first 25 years in this hobby (35mm format), I didn't care about sharpness because the results I got, either printed from a lab or printed myself, were acceptably sharp. When I entered medium format (Hasselblad) and studied the Zone System, I became much more technical and obsessed over sharpness. I'd always use a tripod, always pre-release, I'd use films like Tech Pan, I'd print at 16x20, and so on. My photos were still good, but certainly I was also choosing subjects where I could demonstrate to myself the sharpness I could achieve.

That has since changed in that I can be happy with a photo that is good because of the subject, catching the right moment, the colors, composition, whatever. Sharpness has to be good enough, but doesn't have to be the most important thing.

I have been upset though when I get simple 4x6 or 5x7 prints from a lab that are so unsharp it's distracting. With the shift to digital, I believe the quality of lab prints have gone down.

(*) Yep: http://www.kenrockwell.com/tech/7.htm

Terry Breedlove · Aug 14, 2016

When I have the Hasselblad or 4x5 on the tripod and doing landscapes yes I am interested in getting a good exposure and sharp photos. When I am shooting 35mm on the streets or chasing my granddaughter around I am much more interested in just getting the shot in the camera at all cost. Sometimes that might mean pushing the film and getting more grain etc but that is ok. It might mean the photo isn't perfectly in focus but that is ok. Some of my most cherished shots are not anywhere technically perfect and that is ok. More than that in some of those less than perfect shots the imperfections actually give it more meaning and more purpose. Just take a look at Capas D day photos. They are blurry out of focus and technically horrible. Yet it is those same qualities that give those shots even more emotional draw and power.

benveniste · Aug 14, 2016

There is a not-insignificant percentage of hobbyists who view sharpness as a end rather than a means. So I took a spare bit of kit I had laying around and had a smith put together this statement on "lens sharpness:"

With that gag out of the way, for some technical uses sharpness can be important, and there are a few types of shots where the intended audience will want to "focus in" on part of the shot rather than take in the shot as a whole. Group photography is an example -- viewers tend to search out themselves or the people in the photo they know. In that case, sharpness can be important.

In fact, this quick snap is a tongue and cheek example of this. At least some viewers here will be more interested in the lens (A 24mm f/2.8 Pentax 110) than the too-narrow blade (grump.) So...

Ron789 · Aug 14, 2016

For certain photo's, sharpness is essential.
For certain photo's, sharpness does not harm that much.
For certain photo's, sharpness is killing.

Most famous photographers that I admire made many many, very very unsharp images.
Most of the sharp images that I see in forums etc. I find absolutely boring. Too much focus on technique, too little creativity and imagination.

canvassy · Aug 14, 2016

A lot of times I'm shooting wide open, so the only sharpness I care about is my intended focus point.

Gerald C Koch · Aug 14, 2016

I worry about sharpness only as it pertains to the cutlery in my kitchen knife drawer.

dpurdy · Aug 14, 2016

To answer the one question asked,
"if you make sharp images, what do you do to get your results?
if you don't do sharp, what do you do to get those results?"

When I am working with sharpness I use sharp lenses and sometimes process B&W film in Beutlers formula. That is about all I do. Working with still life you can increase separation with lighting. I have recently made this gadget that might make hand holding a camera more steady. The jury is out. I bought a screw and loop(Ican'trember what it is called) that screws into the tripod socket on the bottom of a camera. i attached a nylon strap to that that is long enough that i can stand on it and hold the camera eye height. Then I can pull up on the camera making the strap taught and hope that helps hold the camera still... much like they teach you with a Rolleiflex strap to pull down on it around your neck to help hold the camera still.
When I work with softness I will hand hold long exposures. Or use the widest fstop. Lately, the last few years, my still life work has been a combination of sharp and blurry. I am not stopping my 14 inch red dot artar very much.

do you spend a lot of time worrying about sharpness ?

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