Sharp is the only correct

StuartR said:
Anyway, I think Gabriel's image is great, and certainly better than the second one. I think that life like does not have to mean pin sharp.
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To be fair, the "sharp" sample isn't "great", regardless of sharpness. I really wanted to find one of those "very sharp" photos of old, hyper-wrinkled people that seems to wow everybody, but none of my search criteria worked. Thanks, in any case.

What I was trying to "prove" --which it doesn't, of course, depending on your point of view-- is that "sharpness" isn't what makes a good image.

And a lot of people confuse "camera shake" with "blurry out-of-focus area" aka "where bokeh lives". These views depend on photography philosophy and personal practices and tastes. But everybody falls into the trap of broad-stroke generalizations: "sharpness is necessary for a good image"; "if the photo has blur, it's useless".

And what Stuart and hans say is true: all the evidence I've ever needed is shooting my Canon EOS glass at apertures smaller than f/8 (or up to f/11 in some cases) and you can certainly see some degradation in acuity.
 
My main camera is a 6x17 and I shoot mainly landscapes. I do understand people have different shooting styles so I guess my main tool would be composition since softness and manipulation of depth of field are put aside with f22. Composition IS input from the photographer. "Literal representation" seems more real / lifelike / authentic to me. I do not see with major out of focus areas - but age is playing with that.
Yes, we all have different shooting styles and use the camera (and even film) to help achieve end results. Not all out of focus is bad. Barrett's image has the girl slightly out of focus, but that is due to closeness to the camera. (I would keep that image) Even my f22 has 'softness' out to 7 or 8 feet. I use composition to avoid most things within that area.
Sharpness alone does not make a great image - you are right Gabriel. But bokeh alone does not either.
I do realize that I am in the minority here on RFF. I shoot landscapes, I shoot color and I like sharpness. Polls on the site tell me most others shoot street or portraits, use black and white and love sort depth of field. Some people also shoot from waist level while I focus to a fault or use infinity.
Still wondering why a picture may have a focused object in the center and a majority of the image out of focus. Why not have the object larger in the frame or crop the image to 'remove' so much out of focus area?

Steve
 
Avotius said:
Shooting snapshots of your drinking buddies around a table with no care to composition, lighting, effect, or even color balance doesnt cut it for me as art let alone huge gallery prints.. Using a 4x5 camera on a tripod at a situation like that is just annoying
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I'd like to confront you why one has to make perfect color balance, lighting etc? If sharpness is not important for you. It is whole point that one can get different picture with one feature but lacking other at the same time. I think that teacher is more clever than he seems to be 😉 You expected some rules following but he break the rules to annoy you until you get the point of the whole process.
 
sjw617 said:
Still wondering why a picture may have a focused object in the center and a majority of the image out of focus. Why not have the object larger in the frame or crop the image to 'remove' so much out of focus area?

Steve
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Taste, Subject matter and Emphasis. Depends on the degree of blurryness, give an idea of the surrounding enviroment without it poking in your eyes. Like someone say before, you dont need to see a cigarette butt 20m away.
 
What I think this all boils down to is this: we all have our favorite images from other photographers. Think about those images, then ask this: gently deconstructed, which "rules" do some of these images adhere to, and which do they break, based on your own standards? It's one thing to have standards for one's own work: "sharpness rules", "sharpness is vastly overrated", etc. But is it not true for a lot of us that some of the images by others that have often moved us, left their indelible mark in our memory, have technically gone at right angles with those standards?

Plus, recalling the words of my one and only formal photography teacher, you can't effectively break any aesthetic 'rule" without understanding that rule from the get-go. Photography has gone through phases just as other creative mediums have, though perhaps at a somewhat faster pace. It pays, IMO, to pay attention to all of them, and perhaps go beyond personal like/dislike and dig a little deeper. Sometimes, in some work, there truly is no "there" there, even if all the "rules" line up, while some work grabs me by the collar and doesn't let go, even though the crossed-t's-and-dotted-i's part of my brain might briefly wince and say "damn, this thing's a mess."

Without patting myself too hard on the back, I like to think that I've absorbed enough of the "rules", golden or otherwise, to pretty much not think about them, whether wandering around a gallery or meandering behind my own lens. The deconstructive stuff comes a good deal later, if it comes at all. Of course, as Woody implies, that doesn't make me a genius by a long shot.

A great Thanksgiving to you all!


- Barrett
 
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hans voralberg said:
Taste, Subject matter and Emphasis. Depends on the degree of blurryness, give an idea of the surrounding enviroment without it poking in your eyes.
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Taste I understand and emphasis I can see. Subject matter... what subjects would be good examples?

Steve
 
sjw617 said:
Taste I understand and emphasis I can see. Subject matter... what subjects would be good examples?
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All subjects would be good examples, I think. The emphasis you place on different aspects of your chosen subject, guided by your own personal taste pretty much accounts for how photos are constructed.

If there is some magic rule, based on subject alone, saying "all landscapes must be shot with wide DOF" or "portraits must use narrow DOF" or whatever, it immediately cries out to be broken.

...Mike
 
sjw617 said:
My main camera is a 6x17 and I shoot mainly landscapes. I do understand people have different shooting styles so I guess my main tool would be composition since softness and manipulation of depth of field are put aside with f22.
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Many members shoot close-up or in the street as you point out Steve. There manipulating DOF is a useful tool becuase you are so close to a scene with a number of planes of focus. Often the wish is to isolate a part of it, to make a figure/background to help the viewer to more easily see what you saw. Also in many cases composition is set aside to capture a fleeting moment because that is what a street shooter is looking for.
 
albanelfed07.jpg


Not sharp at all. I like it though. It says exactly what I wanted it to.
 
tomasis said:
I'd like to confront you why one has to make perfect color balance, lighting etc? If sharpness is not important for you.
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Remember to count 10 paces before you turn around to shoot your opponent during this confrontation.
 
Avotius said:
Shooting snapshots of your drinking buddies around a table with no care to composition, lighting, effect, or even color balance doesnt cut it for me as art let alone huge gallery prints.. Using a 4x5 camera on a tripod at a situation like that is just annoying. Just.....why?
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I wholeheartedly agree. Having this view is nowhere in conflict with the view that "sharpness" doesn't have to be the only correct criteria attainable or "pursued" by a photograph. ( ::blech:: )

I know what shots you're talking about, and I have a few photographers in mind. That is their style, and it works for them. It works for their fanbase, too.

What really rides my t*tt*es and roasts my goat is seeing how much lack of skill and talent is over-compensated by their cranberry-limenade approach to contrast, and the lure of the lit cigarette on somebody's face. All "hip shots" that aren't really, just shots from a randomly-aimed drunken or too-busy hand.

But that doesn't mean that the photographs can't be good. Some photographers actually spend time cropping to give better sense to the entropy they caught in their film-loaded apparatus; these are the ones that make the cut.

But that is now more of a personal criticism, and really, what do I really know about how a specific photo was achieved?

But your sentiment is understood (at least by me): little or no thought going into a photograph has as much merit as calling somebody a Nuclear Physicist just because, to paraphrase George Costanza (from Seinfeld), he "found Plutonium by accident". If somebody has a "nose" (so to speak) to know how to luckily always come up with Plutonium and Eisteinium often enough to get rich in the metal exchange market, then that's another skill, just not acquired through the Institute of Technology, but perhaps at seminars of The Road Less Travelled.

OK, rant over. That was very sharp banter. 😉
 
mfunnell said:
Hmm, at 20m total distance, what focal length would you recommend? 😀

...Mike
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Depends. To get a cool shot of the barrel of the gun, I'd say 180mm at f/2.8 😀

If such details aren't important (oh, the irony) perhaps a 15mm at f/16; everything will be in focus. Whether it'll be "sharp", that's up to your film speed and steadying skills 😉
 
Capture the story, carry forth the emotion, keep the viewer mesmerized. Sharpness is accomplishing all the above.
 
Vido said:
Capture the story, carry forth the emotion, keep the viewer mesmerized. Sharpness is accomplishing all the above.
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There is the "context thing", however.

In this thread, I bring up the matter of viewing a movie, shot in a medium that doesn't register all that comfortably in my mind's/heart's eye, but nonetheless doesn't get in the way of my absorbing the power of the story being told (and what a wallop of a story). Knowing your way around a particular medium, breaking through it, knowing it till you can forget it, is sometimes more important than the medium being chosen. But few people are capable of this. Some (most?) will make a hash of things regardless of medium. Some are good enough to transcend whatever medium is at hand. (Lumet comes damn close, but I still sort of wish he'd ad least gone Super-16, yet he's the old master, not me).

Al I'm (still) saying is: get to know your chosen medium, its strengths and limitations (and thay ALL have limitations), and work it as hard as you can to bend it to your mind's eye. That's all.


- Barrett
 
sjw617 said:
Taste I understand and emphasis I can see. Subject matter... what subjects would be good examples?
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If I were close-minded about using one or the other approach, I wouldn't have come up with the "all-in-focus/sharp" image and the "blurry/selective-focus" image.

Many shades between white and black.
 
There is a difference for me between motion blur, selective focus and out of focus.
I use motion blur a lot...
01wk7a.jpg

(taken with my first digital...a FujiLeica Digilux Zoom!)

I'd like to get a lensbaby to play more with selective focus, but I also try to keep my images in focused on at least some plane within the photo.
 
Gabriel, I thought you meant specific subjects fit better - now I see you are really saying it is a per subject choice. Each subject must be judged on it's own.
I guess our styles are quite different at times. The second image of the hand is VERY interesting.

Mark, motion blur can be good but can also be distracting.

Peter , I think as I use f22 others use f2-ish as their main set up. "Also in many cases composition is set aside to capture a fleeting moment because that is what a street shooter is looking for." Kind of surprised to see you say that.

Steve
 
Don't know who said it but I believe that 'Perfecton is a very narrow goal'. Moreover, very few of us ever achieves this very narrow goal.

Maybe I'm a bit misguided but I do try to get my shots within what I regard as the acceptable limits of sharpness or what's the point of having a focusing ring? If I'm taking a 'planned' photo of someone, I can't think of an instance where I would deliberately not make it as in focus as I possibly could. That said, I might use the lens wide open to take out the background.

If it's a grab-shot, I'd rather capture the moment or the essence of what is going and it not be critically 'sharp' than spend time getting the focus spot-on and miss the shot.

Paul.
 
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