How to achieve such sharpness?

[Gary A.]

Resolution and sharpness is a totally different things.

They may be but you'll never get any sharpness from a low-resolution image. I have an old 1 or 2 megapixel Sony camera at home somewhere and I guarantee you'll never see a sharp image from it.

Lens sharpness is defined and measured by resolution.

 

[SCraig]

Agreed that knowledge and ability plays a vital role. I have used my live view to get focus and check the sharpness before taking the picture. I would zoom in to the spot that I wanted to focus on in my live view and manual focus from there. However, as mentioned previously in my reply to weepete, there is a noticeable difference between the sharpness of my nikon 35mm and sigma 10-20mm. I am wondering if there is something wrong with my sigma and the focus is not calibrated properly. But then again, I got it off MPH when I was in the UK and now I am back in my own country with no warranty.

Stop using manual focus for one thing. DSLR focusing screens are not the greatest for manual focusing, especially at wide apertures and especially with Live View. Learn how autofocus works (see the link in KmH's post above) and its limitations and you'll find it to work quite well.

 

[Gary A.]

PS- In junction with a high resolving lens ... use a tripod.

All these multiple details mentioned above will contribute to sharpness.

 

[Gary A.]

There are websites which test the resolving power of lenses under laboratory conditions. Additionally, over time, lenses will/may become 'unsharp' due to rough handling and repeated exposure to extreme temps. Having a soft lens realigned may help to restore a lens back to factory specs.

 

[john.margetts]

Resolution and sharpness is a totally different things.

They may be but you'll never get any sharpness from a low-resolution image. I have an old 1 or 2 megapixel Sony camera at home somewhere and I guarantee you'll never see a sharp image from it.

Lens sharpness is defined and measured by resolution.

Lens sharpness is also dependent on lens micro-contrast. A high resolution, low contrast lens will give poor sharpness.

It is best to understand that actually there is no such thing as sharpness but a variety of elements affecting the appearance of the image - circle of confusion size, Airy disc intensity, resolution, contrast, focus accuracy, viewing medium and others.

Sent from my 8070 using Tapatalk

 

[mycognitivecreations]

Thank you all for shedding light on this issue for me! The links provided by KmH were immensely useful

 

[sergezap]

Resolution and sharpness is a totally different things.

They may be but you'll never get any sharpness from a low-resolution image. I have an old 1 or 2 megapixel Sony camera at home somewhere and I guarantee you'll never see a sharp image from it.

Send me a well exposed shot and lets see.

This one is about 0.5 Mpx. Is this sharp enough?

 

[photoflyer]

One factor, for a given lens, is aperture. Each lens has an optimal aperture for sharpness. Also, primes are usually sharper than zooms though with the highest quality zooms it may be difficult to discern the difference. I don't have a lot of time so I commit the heinous crime of shooting JPG but I think shooting raw provides another opportunity to get maximum sharpness. Certainly there is more information, but others can weigh in.

 

[mrca]

I am a pro and the first thing to do is get the camera on a tripod, easy shooting a landscape. In studio for portraits I even use a rolling camera stand to ensure tack sharp images. And use a cable release, remote trigger or the camera timer and if you really want to be finicky, use mirror lock up to remove any vibration introduced by the mirror slap. Next, stop down to smaller aperture. Not the smallest because that can introduce lack of sharpness. A lens is typically sharpest 2 to 3 stops from wide open. f/11 or 16 with a lens going to 22 will give max depth of field and excellent sharpness with most lenses. With subjects that move, be sure to have enough shutter speed so there isn't blur from subject movement. Don't have a cheap filter screwed onto the lens. In post, judicious use of clarity and sharpening. I really like Nik's sharpening program. It was free, not sure if it still is now that DxO bought it and is charging $50. And Serge is right, from the same lens you get a sharper image across the whole frame, particularly near the edges. Usually the edges of the frame are the areas that are the least sharp. Want one sharp to the edges, expect to pay more than a kit lens. When you use a ff lens on a crop sensor, you cut off what would be the outer edges on a ff image, hence you are using the best part of the lens.

 

[do_japan]

PS- In junction with a high resolving lens ... use a tripod.

All these multiple details mentioned above will contribute to sharpness.

This was my thought. Does anyone know what settings this was shot on? Tripod allows for longer exposure, thus allowing for smaller aperture, not to mention the stability factor. I don't have a tripod, and can never seem to get landscapes this sharp.

 

[Gary A.]

PS- In junction with a high resolving lens ... use a tripod.

All these multiple details mentioned above will contribute to sharpness.

This was my thought. Does anyone know what settings this was shot on? Tripod allows for longer exposure, thus allowing for smaller aperture, not to mention the stability factor. I don't have a tripod, and can never seem to get landscapes this sharp.

Tripod's are a great help, especially for landscapes. Additionally, a tripod will slow you down. This slow down can be very useful as it allows you the time to think about all the other details which need attention to order improve/maximize the image ... from the camera settings to the composition.

 

[mrca]

There should be no reason not to get sharp landscape photos during the day with plenty of light. If your camera has burst mode and you are hand holding, try shooting in 3-4 shot bursts, the reason being pushing the shutter on the first shot and releasing it on the last could introduce camera movement, the middle one or two should be sharp. With a nikon 16-35 with 4 stop vr, image stabilization I can brace against something, pillar, building, pew, car and hand hold to a full second and pretty reliably at half second. The landscape isn't moving so you are dealing with camera movement. Also, since you ask settings, you need to be closed down to get the largest depth of field possible. Raise your iso to get a shutter speed at least 1/lens length. In day light and a bit before sunset shouldn't take much. Also, use a wider angle lens, that gives greater dof. Where you place focus is important. Consider focusing a third into the scene and if you want more detail, research hyperfocal distance. Here's one to check: Hyperfocal Distance Explained - Photography Life There is a travel substitute for a tripod. The platypod plus a ball head that you will eventually purchase for a tripod. Allowed where tripods aren't.

 

[TCampbell]

Many of these are achieved by using a tripod to build a panorama composed of lots of sub-images. You're now basically combining the resolution of these individual images in a single ultra-high-resolution result.

 

[mrca]

Tim is correct, combining images left to right, sometimes in more than one shot level, is one approach. Using a program like photoshop or a plug in to stitch multiple images together. Another is combining images foreground to background, called focus stacking, giving dof from immediately in front of camera to the background.

 

[vintagesnaps]

Just sell/trade in the crappy lens for a nice sharp used lens and buy from a different seller that's reputable like KEH or Adorama. If you had a better lens you shouldn't need to do a lot in post. And if it's out of focus, you can't really fix that later.

Maybe you need to get in more practice to help get better at hand holding a camera. I don't use a tripod but certainly plenty of people do if they're setting up to shoot landscapes, so maybe that's an option. Practice focusing; I focus manually but that's how I learned and supposedly we can actually see and focus better in low light than what a camera can do. I don't know about in brighter light but people sure talk a lot about missed focus using focus points, etc., so figure out what works best for you and practice.