Picture softness... camera, lens, or....

[Myrdhinn]

Words of wisdom from one of your top wedding togs, Jeff Ascough. Full text here: http://photo.net/learn/wedding/wedding-photography-tips-with-jeff-ascough/

I’m afraid one of the problems with digital photography is that people have become so anal about sharpness, to the point of it dominating everything else. Seeing an image at 100% on a 30" monitor is not living in the real world. The amount of wasted hours of rubbish spoken about sharpness across the Internet is bizarre. Maybe if people got out from behind their keyboards, and took pictures instead of whining about them, they would understand that sharpness is not just about a lens.
Admittedly, the current crop of sensors have immense resolving power, which will show up flaws in lens design especially at wide apertures. However, in the real world of prints and correct viewing distances, I doubt if anyone would argue that today’s cameras and lenses are just incredible tools, capable of producing amazing results.
Compare what we use now to what Cartier-Bresson had throughout his career. Or Capa, Winogrand, Brassai, Eve Arnold etc. We have never had it so good, and yet all we seem to do is moan about sharpness. Why?

 

[KMPhoto]

Have to agree with him - the debate can get too anal at times. I take photos for pleasure; as long as they look good to me and to the few I share them with, I'm happy. Mine would never get accepted for stock photo sites though

Having said that, I have taken some that were for publication and that meant I took a lot more care and in some cases returned to shoot a few more exposures to ensure they were correct.

 

[j37r]

I agree, sharpness is not everything. On Christmas day at a family gathering I took pictures of a 4 year old great niece, one of these showed a stunning expression and looked superb on the camera screen.

Her mum wanted it printed, however when loaded onto the PC I could see that I had missed focus by a couple of inches resulting in the face being almost soft focus but the hair sharp, I went ahead and printed it along with several others with correct focus.

The following day I gave the pictures to the mum, on seeing the mis-focussed shot she said " oh my god, that is beautiful" and burst into tears.

It made me realise that the perfection that we strive for is not always required by the audience, it's the moment or the look that is more important.


John

 

[AndyWest]

I put my hands up to being one of the worlds worst pixel peepers and i used to get really annoyed of the sharpness wasn't there. I am now not so bad and tend not to pixel peep nearly so much and look at the image as a whole. Also I'm convinced it's all about the composition. Get a great composition and everything else seems much less important.

2011 is going to see a new era for my photography.

Think more - when taking the shot
Worry less - in post processing!

 

[POAH]

Words of wisdom from one of your top wedding togs, Jeff Ascough. Compare what we use now to what Cartier-Bresson had throughout his career. Or Capa, Winogrand, Brassai, Eve Arnold etc. We have never had it so good, and yet all we seem to do is moan about sharpness. Why?

because we can, we can see how good a lens is by zooming in. The more technology we have to analyse results the better products we will get so please Jeff stop talking mince just to plug your website :nono: