Obsession with Image Sharpness

[mrinmoyvk]

Indeed sharpness is must in image. After using friend's 18-200 for couple of days at a wedding I started feeling jealous as I did not have that reach in any of my lenses. But when I shifted to my 50mm 1.8 on the third day. 18-200 was just a extra luggage and overweight in my bag.

Having said that sharpness is relative I think. Average sharp imge that has amazing bokeh looks better to me than the image with everything in 100% sharp.

[tclune]

Of course, you can always fuzz up a sharp image. Going the other way, however...

[xpatUSA]

A quote of Dan G Mitchell, that I have hanging in my workplace:

“I have to say that worrying about which super sharp lens is a tiny bit sharper than the other super sharp lens might be a bit obsessive...”

Extending that to cameras, I once made a really, really bad mistake. Without going into too much detail, I once compared a Sigma SD9 DLSR (3.4MP) against a m4/3 Panasonic Lumix DMC-G1 (12MP). Lenses used were the Sigma 70mm EX DG macro vs. the Panasonic-Leica 45mm macro Elmarit, both well-respected in the sharpness department.

First mistake was in doing a comparison at the pixel level using a slant-edge test with QuickMTF. On a pixel basis, the SD9 measured sharper (the measurement here being MTF at 0.5 cycles per pixel, a.k.a. Nyquist frequency).

So, second mistake, I sold the Panasonic stuff - all of it - at a considerable loss.

Poor me, I had yet to learn that a better measure is calculated in terms of lines per picture height; or that downsizing pictures makes them sharper (on my monitor; remember, I don't print).

In fact, the "sharpest" images I can get myself are with the SD9 in LO res binned mode (0.8MP). But they wouldn't look too good printed at 24x36"

Dedicated seekers of sharpness might find this definitive article of interest:

http://www.falklumo.com/lumolabs/articles/sharpness/
.

[tclune]

I confess to finding the repeated use of the word "obsessive" about concern for sharpness in this thread odd and inappropriate. If you shoot B&W, it would be odd to rage about people "obsessing" over accurate color. It may not apply to your shooting, but that doesn't make it pathological for others to be concerned about it in theirs.

[John 2]

I confess to finding the repeated use of the word "obsessive" about concern for sharpness in this thread odd and inappropriate. If you shoot B&W, it would be odd to rage about people "obsessing" over accurate color. It may not apply to your shooting, but that doesn't make it pathological for others to be concerned about it in theirs.

++1 from me. If you have it when you need it , you don't always have to apply it.

[rpcrowe]

While I totally agree that lens and camera choice certainly has a great impact on the "sharpness" of any image, as does focus and steady hold with a correct shutter speed; IMO proper post processing (including of course, PP sharpening) has a major impact on the sharpness of an image.

I am not talking about trying to rescue a fuzzy-graph that was caused by improper focusing, too slow of a shutter speed or an unsteady camera, or a junk filter; I am talking about the sharpening that every digital image can benefit from and which, sadly many images do not get...

[chauncey]

When I shoot anything that has a specific subject, critters/flowers/whatnot, if they don't pass
muster in LR @ 200%, they are pitched. Is that obsessive?

[Mike Buckley]

When I shoot anything that has a specific subject, critters/flowers/whatnot, if they don't pass
muster in LR @ 200%, they are pitched. Is that obsessive?

That depends on the size of the displayed image and the viewing distance. In other words, that's obsessive in all but few situations.

[Black Pearl]

When I shoot anything that has a specific subject, critters/flowers/whatnot, if they don't pass
muster in LR @ 200%, they are pitched. Is that obsessive?

Not if you display the final image to people at 200% and expect them to look very closely at it - and care or even notice micro sharpness which normal people don't - but if you display the image at reasonable levels of enlargement and a reasonable viewing distance then yes that is obsessive to a (in my opinion) needless degree.

[Shadowman]

Perhaps some respondents have a negative association with the word "obsession" especially when used with "unhealthy" as did the author on the link. I think the author used both words sarcastically; as the most danger to befall an obsessive photographer would be injury from one's spouse when purchasing a $10,000 lens all in the pursuit of image sharpness.

I don't see any difference in Chauncey's pitching a photo that lacked sharpness then in my not posting an image for the same reason. I think we all censor our own works in some form or another, so perhaps we obsess over different aspects of our work; some of us just choose sharpness as our criteria.

[chauncey]

As I've opined previously...viewing distance expected is nose length.

[xpatUSA]

When I shoot anything that has a specific subject, critters/flowers/whatnot, if they don't pass
muster in LR @ 200%, they are pitched. Is that obsessive?

First place I go to review shots is FastStone Viewer (FSV) where 2, 3 or 4 images can be compared together and panned or zoomed in/out simultaneously. I'll select whatever zoom is required to assess acutance or the lack thereof. That can be 100, 200 or 800% depending on content. No fixed percentage for me.

Like William, I'll trash anything I don't like and, in FSV, that can be done right from the comparison view

[Mike Buckley]

As I've opined previously...viewing distance expected is nose length.

That being the case, 200% is not enough magnification when evaluating sharpness.

Seriously, I remember a tutorial created by Moose Petersen years ago about the use of Nikon Capture NX2 that included his comment that he always evaluated sharpness at 600%. I tried doing that just for kicks and never figured out how sharpness can be evaluated at such high magnification, apparently because I didn't (and still don't) know what to look for at that magnification.

[chauncey]

some of us just choose sharpness as our criteria.

Eyesight is fine...tis my vision that is lacking.

[Shadowman]

That being the case, 200% is not enough magnification when evaluating sharpness.

Seriously, I remember a tutorial created by Moose Petersen years ago about the use of Nikon Capture NX2 that included his comment that he always evaluated sharpness at 600%. I tried doing that just for kicks and never figured out how sharpness can be evaluated at such high magnification, apparently because I didn't (and still don't) know what to look for at that magnification.

About 99.9% of all authors I've read say magnify to 100%. Lee Varis is one of a few who suggested viewing at 50%. His sharpening tutorial is from the book SKIN.

http://www.varis.com/StepByStep/shar...ad/Sharpen.pdf

[xpatUSA]

Assuming that sharpness is only "measured" by subjective means with no numbers involved, does it really what percentage any of us uses to view and assess it? Or, indeed whether we look at our tablets, at our monitors or at prints viewed at whatever distance?

"Sharpness": one of those wonderful photographic words that mean all things to all men

[Manfred M]

About 99.9% of all authors I've read say magnify to 100%. Lee Varis is one of a few who suggested viewing at 50%. His sharpening tutorial is from the book SKIN.

http://www.varis.com/StepByStep/shar...ad/Sharpen.pdf

I might be tempted to treat an article on the subject that was published 12 years (Varis's article came out in 2003) ago as rather dated because the technology has changed so much.

Going back in history a to that era, Nikon's top of the line camera was the 4.1MP D2H whereas Canon's 11.1 MP 1Ds was their top of the line offering. These cameras had fairly heavy duty AA filters, so far as I know, so sharpening requirements would be quite different from today.

[Shadowman]

I might be tempted to treat an article on the subject that was published 12 years (Varis's article came out in 2003) ago as rather dated because the technology has changed so much.

Going back in history a to that era, Nikon's top of the line camera was the 4.1MP D2H whereas Canon's 11.1 MP 1Ds was their top of the line offering. These cameras had fairly heavy duty AA filters, so far as I know, so sharpening requirements would be quite different from today.

Perhaps the text is dated but the technology to view images has advanced, this brings into the debate (friendly as it is) the size of monitors used to view images as well as the editing software to sharpen. It seems we are getting closer and closer to our images yet the need to sharpen continues.

[Manfred M]

Perhaps the text is dated but the technology to view images has advanced, this brings into the debate (friendly as it is) the size of monitors used to view images as well as the editing software to sharpen. It seems we are getting closer and closer to our images yet the need to sharpen continues.

Frankly, I really don't get too excited about how I prepare my images for viewing on the internet. I can't control the viewer's screen size, quality, calibration / profiling that has been done, so I generally don't get too hung up regarding sharpening. I happen to use a larger 27" screen, so I know that the images might look a touch oversharpened if viewed on something a bit smaller screen.

On the other hand, I pay close attention to what I do when I print. Here I am careful as sharpening will depend on a lot of parameters, including the paper I am using, viewing distance. I generally assume that the closest "normal" viewing distance is ~ the diagonal measurement of the paper; for a 17" x 22" print, this would be around 28" (this is one of those "rules" I learned back in my wet darkroom days).

[Mike Buckley]

Frankly, I really don't get too excited about how I prepare my images for viewing on the internet.

I don't either for the reasons you mentioned. The sharpening that I apply for display on the Internet is the only post-processing I do that is fully automated and done in a batch process; all other post-processing that I do is custom processing done one image at a time.