Faster shutter speed gives razor sharp image?

[tecboy]

Let's say less than 1/250 of a second, will it give sharpest image as possible? Most of the time I set to 1/125 of a second and the images are pretty sharped to me.

 

[astroNikon]

I would think
is there any movement and how fast is that movement. You would want a faster shutter speed to stop movement.

or
what is the sharpest aperture of your lens.

Then combine the two for the sharpest photo

not taking into account lighting, etc

 

[480sparky]

IF:

Your lens is sharp,

You've focused properly,

The aperture will give you enough DOF for the subject,

AND:

You use good shooting technique, then YES, a high shutter speed should give you a sharp image.



Unless you want something wild like a bullet in flight or something.

 

[tecboy]

I'm not convince base on their videos. They recommend faster lenses for super sharped images. Sometimes the dof will be too shallow and the whole dog will not be sharped.

One Picture Saves a Life

 

[manaheim]

The things that affect sharpness are:

- shutter speed
- focal length (longer focal length requires faster shutter speed)
- ideal focal length for the lens (you can look this up, but it's often about 1/3 zoomed in)
- camera shake
- ideal aperture for the lens (you can look this up, but it's often 2-3 stops down from maximum)
- quality of glass/lens
- whether or not the camera has an AA filter (most do)

There are a lot of factors.

 

[Derrel]

I once had a 40-year commercial pro tell me that if I anted REALLY sharp images, my shutter speeds needed to be in the 1/500 second range. I thought that was unrealistic; I was used to shooting 35mm film at speeds in the 1/60 to 1/250 range most of the time. After hearing his words bounce around in my head for over four years (seriously), when I was in college, I decided to test that theory.

WOW!!! I spend a week shooting a Nikon FM at 1/500 second, and adjusting my f/stop to that speed...it was an EYE-OPENING experience. My images changed dramatically. Of course, I ended up shooting a lot of shallow depth of field stuff, often at f/3.5 or f/4. But ohhhhh my....I had not realized what a difference there would be shooting "real life" scenes at 1/500 second, as opposed to 1/125, a pretty typical speed.

If you shoot 24MP FX at 1/320 second on "real life" scenes hand-held, you know, with people, and things moving around the frame, and not static landscapes or buildings, if you look very closely at the images, you'll see that with longer focal lengths, 1/320 shows slight blurring of people, their hair, leaves, kids in motion, and so on. It is often pretty subtle, but at times, on fast-moving people or kids or pets, you WILL SEE fairly obvious smearing of features...a very slight "movement". If the images are reduced, and downsized to very small sizes, you'll not see this all that much.

We sometimes forget: HIGH-RESOLUTION cameras have been around for a looooooong time. Here's the focal plane shutter speed tensioning guide from my 1938 Speed graphic:

 

[KmH]

- ideal aperture for the lens (you can look this up, but it's often 2-3 stops down from maximum)

If it's a fast lens - f/2.8 or faster (f/2, f/1.8, f/1.4, etc.)
Because wide open a fast lens uses those parts of the lens aperture closer to the edge of the lens, which usually do not focus to the same exact point as the middle part of the lens.

A consumer grade lens that has a max aperture of f/3.5 or smaller (f/4, f/4.5 etc) only uses the middle part of the lens so stopping a consumer grade lens down any amount is less effective at improving focus sharpness.

 

[JerryLove]

Sharpness is effect by.
1) Are you in focus?
2) Is your shutter-speed fast enough to stop motion (1/6 sec works fine shooting a rock off a tripod)
3) How sharp is your lens (usually, a lens is at its best 1-2 stops away from it's lowest f-value)

Though not actually affecting sharpness at the focus point, also of importance is.
1) lower f-stop values will decrease the "depth of field" (look it up). That means that you may have part of something sharp and another part not sharp. Higher f-values make more of a thing sharp (assuming you managed sharpness based on the 3 things above)
2) Really high ISO (not enough light) will add noise to a picture... which can also hurt the appearance of sharpness.