When did razor sharp images.....

[Fusion]

You could put a simple definition of a good picture as one that is sharp, has good color and accurate exposure, but a picture is much more than the sum of these things. Look at the work of Robert Capa and his shots of the D-Day landing in 1943, none are sharp, none are perfect but they are brilliant photographs in my opinion. Look at the work of Ansell Adams, sharp superbly exposed images, the total opposite to Capa but both produced great images..

A good picture for me need elements within it that speak to me and tell a story, sharpness yes but not totally required depending on the image. If it provokes a emotional gut reaction, horror, love, hate, then its a good picture of that type. I can also appreciate the type of work produced by the great such as Adams which are true works of artistry.

Some of the great portrait photographer like Josef Karsh, Helmut Newton and Weston produced magnificent works.

 

[kkamin]

Doesn't film have an inherent softness (not oof) since you are exposing silver molecules that are organically shaped and 'randomly' arranged? And digital is a firmly defined matrix of square pixels. I started when film was still king and shot on a variety of formats.

Now with digital, when I shoot portraits, I spend a considerable time retouching skin, in order to bring it back to the impression it gives in reality, if you know what I mean. I don't normally stare at people faces like an archeologist staring at a fossil. High resolution digital picks up every little imperfection and creates an unflattering appearance to skin in most circumstances. With film, the tinier imperfections would be 'toned down'.

I like sharp images but I see it as more work now in post to reduce the distractions and simplify the image to its intent.

 

[LearnMyShot]

Thanks for you thoughts....I grew up with images that were all about sharp from here to the moon...and that was a style in the seventies .....then some one thought of doing stills like fashion images....and the short focus trend took off...and it is beautiful, but it doesn't mean it is the only focus in photoghaphy..a great image is just that....the visual and impact are everything, no matter where the depth of field is located..don't be controlled by the fad....trust your feelings.

 

[ArtphotoasiA]

Finally a camera is just a box with a hole!



Photographer is the creator.... sharpen or not...

 

[Dominantly]

When did all this hype come about with owning a car with air bags? Or ABS? What the heck is a crumple zone and why do I have it in my vehicle?

Technology, as it progresses, so do the demands. You tell me you can offer me 12.3 megapixels, I ask "why not 15"?

I believe as we advance with our technology, so does our desire to obtain what our eyes see as perfect photographs. When I look around my room, I see with a good amount of clarity, objects are sharp, contrast is strong, etc. What I don't see is a soft image. You may, and if so, that's called cataracts; get them checked out.

I would say quite a few people these days are trying to recreate images as they are seen in front of them. The complexity of the human eye and it's capability are what the companies are trying to recreate with imaging equipment.

 

[maris]

When did razor sharp images

become popular?

7th of January, 1839 with the announcement by Francois Arago to the Academie Francaise of the invention of the Daguerrotype. The Daguerrotype is the sharpest photographic process known because it uses a layer of silver halide on silver metal. There is no intra-emulsion light scatter and the grain is of molecular dimensions. What an irony! The sharpest process, and the least convenient and most deadly, was invented first.

 

[kkamin]

When did razor sharp images

become popular?

7th of January, 1839 with the announcement by Francois Arago to the Academie Francaise of the invention of the Daguerrotype. The Daguerrotype is the sharpest photographic process known because it uses a layer of silver halide on silver metal. There is no intra-emulsion light scatter and the grain is of molecular dimensions. What an irony! The sharpest process, and the least convenient and most deadly, was invented first.

If you haven't seen one before, I encourage you to go see one at an art museum. They are gorgeous.

 

[mighe79]

In film days photographers like Avedon, Penn, Newton, Horst, were chosing a tipe of film that would be more flattering for portraits, for example. Giving a low acutance, it would remove imperfection of skin, keeping the overall sharpenss quite "accetable".
It is a matter of trend I guess ... and, yes, as said above, most photographers nowadays ar techartists or gear geeks.
There is absolutely no need of extra sharp images, with every little tiny wee detail in a picture that doesn't require that, such as scientific photography, forensic, or microphotography.
Most ppl forget about the content of a picture and concentrate way too much on the sharpness, in my opinion. At the end of the day the photographs that became iconic, are so beause of their originality, content and great creativity ... certainly not for their sharpness.

 

[jameshilton]

Too many photographers are technocrats ... Digital shooters more than film, and I think because of the technological level of the equipment available today.

It does not matter if it is sharp as hell or 50 gigapixels ...

All of my favorite images are from pre-Digital era.
I don't care if they are technically perfect ... that does not make a great image.

Hi, first time post here, so hello everyone.

I agree, I see a lot of people who are alas more interested the specifications of what their DSLR cameras can do, than actually getting out and taking great photos. This happens in the video world too, but possibly to a larger extent.

There is a lot more to an image that it just being well exposed and sharp. Much more important are composition and having something that will provoke a thought or reaction from the viewer. A sharp well exposed photo of a test chart won't be of much interest to most members of the public, but a photo of a tragic scene for example is more likely to be, regardless of it being pin sharp or slightly soft.

Ironically these days I find I'm less interested in taking sharp images, but rather love taking photos that try and capture movement, so have lots of blur in them and are often slightly out of focus as a result. I often feel like I am living in the past a bit though![FONT=&quot]
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[bif]

Well, I "cut my teeth" on Plus-x and Tri-x developed in D-76 and then in the late '60s and early '70s worked in medium format using Ilford films develeped in Acufine.

I worshipped at the altar of SHARPNESS.

Kodachrome 25 projected on an 80" screen looked incredibly sharp when I wanted it that way.

When I retired from the air force in 1978 and opened a small studio business I really appreciated the sharpness that resulted from the 80mm Planar on 'Blads and the excellent lenses for the Mamiya RB-67. 16x20 color portrait prints from good labs pleased customers when crisp and sharp, and when appropriate when a bit diffuse (shot with the Mamiya 150mm Soft Focus Lens).

Eventually I began to photograph even men with a very subtle degree of diffusion; I had a set of Cokin diffusion filters that gave me a graduated range of 5 strengths ranging from so subtle you couldn't even see it but women loved how their husbands looked to "don't even try to focus through this one". I seemed to have just the right degree for each person who sat down in front of the camera.

That was a fun era to photograph folks. When it was time for a change I went to work as a civilian staffer at an air force training base and everything had to be crisp and sharp again, and as we changed over from conventional film wet process photography to all digital, the camera gear wasn't great at first. 1.5MP cameras with awful moire and very weak medium greens (army green uniforms often came out gray/bluish when skin tones were right.

The next generation of camera we got were better on color but I still had to fight for sharpness, pulling 8x10 portrait prints that looked good from a 1.5MP imager was tough sometimes. And every one of our cameras seemed to have a different color "personality". I remember one being so YELLOW no one could work with its images.

We have it great these days. The Canon 7D I've had since October has more features crammed into it than I ever imagined a camera could have, the Canon Rebels I've had since retiring have all had excellent color.

I've rambled a lot, but still remember being amazed at how sharp a print from an Ilford film negative shot with a Hasselblad with 80mm Planar could be, and how amazingly crisp things looked the first time I put a new 17-40mm f4 L series on the 7D and simply looked through the viewfinder.

But I still need to find a PhotoShop workflow that gets me the same soft dreamy look I used to get in the studio with the Mamiya Soft Focus Lens and with the Cokin diffusion filters I used.

 

[bif]

Who else remembers putting vaseline on your UV filter for a softening effect?

There was a better and safer way. Bill Stockwell, in his wedding seminars used to tell about the guy who heard about that technique and tried it.

Then wanted to know how to get all the vaseline off his lens. Seems he didn't pay attention to the UV filter part.

So Bill Stockwell showed a technique using an eyeglass lens cleaner cartridge (do they even sell these anymore?), like a felt tip lens cleaning fluid dispenser. You "painted" the wet around the outside part of the UV filter and took your picture while still wet.

For a more permanent effect you could use clear nail polish on a UV filter leaving the center portion clear. Best shot with aperture wide open. I used this for a few shots of the bride, bride & groom at weddings for years.

Hadn't thought about that for years.

 

[kkamin]

Bif, thanks for sharing your experiences. It is great to hear these histories and put things in perspective.