So about strobe light

[mysteryscribe]

Does anyone else think that pictures shot with strobe look sharper.

 

[Big Mike]

Sharper than what?

 

[mysteryscribe]

shots without them.. In broad daylight no shake no depth of field problems
just strobe vs non strobe. I think it might have to do with the contrast. I noticed my son in law when he was trying ot shoot everything with mostly daylight and min strobe they looked pretty flat. I never noticed it except in digital

 

[Christie Photo]

I never noticed it except in digital

I've always know that with film, but no so much with digital.

 

[Sw1tchFX]

Not really. The only times when I see the image is sharper is becuase without a strobe there was camera shake.

 

[mysteryscribe]

no camera shake issue here...

I'm working with film, then digitalizing it... I can tell a difference for sure, How much I don't really know but I can see it.

 

[fmw]

I think flash shots often look contrastier. That might be confused with sharpness. When we "sharpen" a digital image in Photoshop what do we actually do? We actually increase contrast at the subject edges. The image looks sharper. It really isn't.

 

[mysteryscribe]

Thats why i said originally LOOK i know the lense doesn't change just because you tack a strobe on.

I'm sure you are right. That's pretty much what I thought about my son in law and the try to use room light which is flatter than strobe.

I think there also might be something else in the quality of the light. Let me say this upfront. Until I digitalized the regatives I never noticed any difference probably because the difference is so slight that a direct print most likely hides whatever it is.

Now here is what I noticed today.

Yesterday I shot a couple of picture of one of my dogs. I shot them outside in the bright sun. ss of 125 f11 or f8 for all of them. She was softer. But on looking back not till it got to 1:1 could you really tell what it was. the colors even in black and white had a lot of different shades in it.

Now I shot a picture of a different dog today with strobe indoors. About the same distance, the same shutter speed, and aperture of f8 leaf shutter, but that doesnt matter anyway. Much sharper to my eye before I even began to do the up to normal pixel enlargement. Both negs were scanned at the same resolution 4800 for a 4x4 negative.

When I hit the strobe light one to 1:1 the first thing I noticed was there were fewer pixel colors visible. I wonder if the natural light causes more color combinations and strobe renders fewer colors. As in the contrast thing you mentioned. So the edge sharpness could actually be the same. It might seem more like a straight line, if there were fewer colors involved.

Just a thought.