post a super sharp image in this thread

[removed account4]

I understand what you're asking. My point is that even if I scanned 8x10 contact prints and then reduce them to 92 dpi, the monitor's sole resolution, the point of displaying the image as a sharp image is negated. I can use my imagination that it's a sharp print. Which is what I am doing now. I relate this to making a plate of homemade fettuccine, emailing a picture of it to someone, and then asking them if they too find it delicious. Computer monitors are good, but their not that good.

dannL
yeah I know , just like he gallery here, the posted scans aren't the real thing
and we just have to accept the fact that they are reflections. it doesn't bother me
that I am viewing things that someone says might be sharp and the monitor doesn't really
depict the image as it might be... I have faith, and use my imagination. and that's ok ..

 

[Sirius Glass]

Attractive image, Rob, but none of these postings illustrate anything about sharpness. Hype the contrast and edge effect a bit and people have something which simulates sharpness for web purposes, but it's all faux unless web presentation itself is the final objective. Nor does highly magnifying part of a scan realize the objective. Printing paper might see things differently (this is APUG, after all). Even for casual purposes, I'd trust a light box and magnifier long before I'd trust any web posting. Of course, this is sometimes the best we can do over distance, so I understand the logistical limitations. Now Rich is a little different story, because I'll probably stumble into him some day locally.

All of the images posted thus far look like digital image files displayed on a 92 dpi monitor to me. I'm not see this "sharpness" that everyone is talking about. With my reading glasses on, I can make out the RBG color pixels of the monitor screen. Is that what determines the sharpness of these images . . . the size of the RGB color pixels and sub-pixels?

If it is on the web it is not a photograph. A photograph is a chemical print on single weight or double weight paper that you can hold in your hands. It must be a photograph to be sharp, so see the previous sentence to understand why the posted images are not sharp.

 

[Poisson Du Jour]

apug is full of a variety of people, some like soft, some like sharp
and others aspire to make sharp but are making soft

often times people help others to reach their desired sharpness by giving instructions in threads
by posting information but no samples of sharpness. people compare fstops in a variety of formats
lens designs, developers and developing methods ... sure, i know one can go to other sites on the webster
and search lens and developer combinations and whatnot to see what's what ... but since this is apug
maybe we should have some sort of a thread where people post their uber-sharp image and just say what
lens and developer/developing method was used. we all know this is the internet, and it is a digital facsimile and we can
hopefully trust that someone didn't futz with PS or some other editing software to achieve their sharpness.
please do not post airforce test charts and please keep this thread civil.

I'm not getting involved in the "sharpness" debate, and so very much of it is just plain stupid here on APUG — everything from lens sharpness to medium format sharpness to large format sharpness — ugh!
So just a contribution. My print-production images have the optimum USM applied calculated on baseline loss at the scan step and the final print size (80x70cm I think, from 6x7).

(Below) 700 year old Redgums,
Dry bed of Umberumberka Creek,
Silverton, outback New South Wales (Australia), September 2013

Velvia 50, multi-spot metered, Pentax 67 with SMC 67 45mm f4 with KSM CPOL.
Printed to RA-4 Kodak Endura Professional Metallic
Sold privately $1,430 (print only | September 2014)

 

[removed account4]

thanks poison du jour !

and i agree the debates are pathetic
and often the same people that attempt to derail
and cause trouble.

 

[Richard S. (rich815)]

Beautiful images Poisson.

 

[Richard S. (rich815)]

Here's one that juxtaposes sharp and blurry:

Rolleiflex 2.8E, Kodak Ektar 100

Really like this one.

 

[Nige]

Not a great photo (good subject, rotten location and light) but decently sharp IMO. I've printed this 12x16 and it looks sharp as

4x5 Zone VI field camera on tripod with Rodenstock Sironar-N 210/5.6 lens, film J&C 400 (not the best film ever made!), exposure 1/15 @ f22, developed in Xtol 1:1 for 10mins @ 20C
scanned on a Epson V700, 2400dpi, no sharpening (it's way to aggressive)
Main picture resized from 10823x8599 pixels to 1800x1430 and small amount of unsharp masking applied in PS
Crops are 100% (ie. as scanned)

 

[TheFlyingCamera]

If it is on the web it is not a photograph. A photograph is a chemical print on single weight or double weight paper that you can hold in your hands. It must be a photograph to be sharp, so see the previous sentence to understand why the posted images are not sharp.

So then daguerreotypes, tintypes, ambrotypes, liquid emulsions on wood, fabric, or stone are not photographs?

 

[removed account4]

So then daguerreotypes, tintypes, ambrotypes, liquid emulsions on wood, fabric, or stone are not photographs?

scott

it's the same tired argument over and over again..
obviously there are people who claim nothing but a paper print is a photograph
its their loss because they have no idea what photography actually could be, what the word means or what photography
can be with a little imagination. it's not worth the effort of arguing with closed minds.

i like your pyramid btw !

 

[bdial]

So then daguerreotypes, tintypes, ambrotypes, liquid emulsions on wood, fabric, or stone are not photographs?

Apparently not, if you are sirius

I do love the sharpness of the first generation images like Dags and tintypes though.

 

[TheFlyingCamera]

Apparently not, if you are sirius

I do love the sharpness of the first generation images like Dags and tintypes though.

If you want to geek on sharpness, then NOTHING beats a Daguerreotype. Resolution is down to molecular silver, not silver grains. Google around for the article about this- I think it was a NY Times Lens article a couple years back, but I remember seeing an item about the resolution of the Daguerreotype. They had a whole plate image of I think it was Cincinnati taken from the other side of the river. In the scene there is a clock tower visible in the background. The clock face is a couple of millimeters across. If you magnify the clock face, you can read the time. Now THAT's sharp! And all the more remarkable considering the state of the art in lens technology in 1845.

 

[bdial]

Here is the image, along with a few others.
http://www.rochester.edu/news/photos/daguerreotype.html

 

[DannL.]

I have an 8x10 negative (ISO 100 film) somewhere buried, that I took about 10 years ago. I recall when printed, you could make out the fence posts on a hill about a mile away from where the camera was located. But, only when using a loupe.That was probably the first contact print that I had made where I was amazed at what that format could do. Shortly thereafter I recall making another 8x10 exposure of an ordinary gas meter which the gas company had spray-painted metallic silver, lit by the morning sun. The silver paint in a contact print literally glowed, with what I could only describe as an iridescence. Something I had never seen elsewhere in my prints. But that is not really "sharpness". It is the "resolution" of the film and lens used that is seen in the prints. The film and lens are able to resolve the finest of detail, to even exceed what the eye is capable of seeing at a normal viewing distance. But, I'm still looking for a print or negative that would be a good example of "sharp", as I might define it. Where distinct elements within the image are well defined, with delectably crisp definition throughout the image.

 

[Sirius Glass]

Daguerreotype and tin types are great and one can hold them in their hands. D stuff, not so much especially when displayed on a screen which by its nature cannot show sharp details no matter how much one wants to see it, siriusly!

 

[Richard S. (rich815)]

Daguerreotype and tin types are great and one can hold them in their hands. D stuff, not so much especially when displayed on a screen which by its nature cannot show sharp details no matter how much one wants to see it, siriusly!

My B&W neg scans from my Nikon 9000 viewed on my iPad and iMac with Retina screens have a depth, clarity, tonality and sharpness that is simply breath-taking and gorgeous. Not the same as a hand-held print but different and equally beautiful in many respects.

 

[Sirius Glass]

Displaying an image file directly on iPad and iMac with Retina screens is much better than displaying on a browser such as Internet Exploder, Firefox or Safari.

 

[removed account4]

this is from a 8x10 paper negative
and a crop from the same negative
no PS sharpening &c, just inversion and barely levels ( on the origina to make it look like the print , not the crop )
the details in the buildings seem sharp to me
probably polymax rc
developer was ansco130. old wollensak triple convertible stopped down to about f32
it was something like a 20 second exposure from what i remember.

 

[Sirius Glass]

John, the contrast helps show the sharpness.

 

[RalphLambrecht]

apug is full of a variety of people, some like soft, some like sharp
and others aspire to make sharp but are making soft

often times people help others to reach their desired sharpness by giving instructions in threads
by posting information but no samples of sharpness. people compare fstops in a variety of formats
lens designs, developers and developing methods ... sure, i know one can go to other sites on the webster
and search lens and developer combinations and whatnot to see what's what ... but since this is apug
maybe we should have some sort of a thread where people post their uber-sharp image and just say what
lens and developer/developing method was used. we all know this is the internet, and it is a digital facsimile and we can
hopefully trust that someone didn't futz with PS or some other editing software to achieve their sharpness.
please do not post airforce test charts and please keep this thread civil.

sharpness is a fuzzy concept

 

[removed account4]

sharpness is a fuzzy concept

yes it is !

and unfortunately people educate/lecture others about sharpness, and offer up no examples of
what they are talking about for whatever reasons they might have.
when asked to post examples, they ignore the requests, or say its beneath them to post examples &c.
if i were one of the people "being educated" and found no examples, or samples by the "educator" it would
make me wonder if the person actually knew what they were talking about, regurgitating someone else's information or what else might be going on ...
( this doesn't just happen with threads related to sharpness but a variety of different subjects )

hopefully this thread will give people who wonder what sharpness might be ( from a variety of different examples )
so someone might have more of an idea, rather than words from local, regional, national and international experts ... with no examples.

 

[Maris]

Once the detail resolution of a picture exceeds the power of the eye to discern it the search for extra image fineness is meaningless. Photography, from the beginning, has always been able to offer "empty" sharpness.

 

[Alan Johnson]

The OP didn't say it has to be your own photo so here's a link to Leica man Erwin Puts:
http://www.imx.nl/photo/Film/Film/page32.html
That section is mostly about microfilm type but if you hover over 'FILM' there is reference to other combinations in a drop down list.

 

[RalphLambrecht]

Yoda, it is a force from the light side.

A scan is a scam in the making!

 

[RalphLambrecht]

At some magnification all images eventually fall apart. So, "sharpness" is relative to magnification (or your ability to see). I once purchased a print signed by Cole Weston, of an image created by his father. I was pleased as punch, until I got home and examined the print with a loupe. To me the print looked sharp and just dandy at a normal viewing distance, but up close you could easily see the dots from the offset printing process. There was nothing sharp about the print. If I had had my reading glasses with me when I found the print, I would have never purchased it, even though Cole had actually signed it.

MAYBE IT WAS FROM THE FIRST DIGITAL NEGATIVE EVER MADE?:confused:

 

[RalphLambrecht]

Super-sharp images inherently cannot be posted on the web. It's like trying to peel a potato with a sledgehammer. Mush, splat, mess. If you
want to see sharp images you need to be nose to nose with something like a 30X40 inch Cibachrome printed from 8x10.

I still think sharpness is terribly overrated and only a goal of a beginning photographer;AA had it right when he said ' nothing is worse than a sharp picture of a fuzzy concept'.Anybody can make a sharp picture.Making one with some soul in it is much harder.