Lens with Optimal Sharpness

Pancolart · Expire: 2013-11-18

What interests me is how do you perceive optimal sharpness. I came to believe that everyone sees it differently and by a lot. Thus showcases of sharp lenses tend to be very different and variable. Even more if presented in 1024 pixels.

Now this is my heretic belief: 99% of every healthy lens ever produced (with exception of some soft-focus and mirror-reflex) can make 1024 pixels usefully sharp in times of post-production and sharpening algorithms.

I opened this topic to gather examples of thesis above. Please post your 1024 pixels photos that you see as ultimately sharp. Sharp-perfect. That makes you think: wow this lens totally rocks! I'd like to buy it right away Wink

(or never sell my specimen). Wide-open usage or closed down isn't an issue here. Show both.

kds315* · Expire: 2021-03-09

Well, I guess what you REALLY mean is optimal ACUTANCE, which is sharpness AND contrast. May I refer to the famous paper of Zeiss' Dr Hubert Nasse about that. What woudl it help you if the SHARPNESS is really high but the contrast really low or vice versa?

sichko · Joined: 20 Jun 2008 Posts: 2475 Location: South West UK

Pancolart · Expire: 2013-11-18

Of course you are both right and thank you for additional explanation.
Nevertheless the "challenge" remains the same. Here's a "perfect" one for me. It's friend's Gujo Vinjerac and AT-X Tokina 2.8/60-120mm:

AhamB · Joined: 22 Jun 2008 Posts: 733 Location: Germany

Nearly perfect for me. I am seeing some sharpening haloes around the windows. Wink

It's a nice shot though.

I think it depends a lot on the type of shot whether sharpening can equalize the difference between a sharp lens with a lot of micro contrast and a less sharp lens with a more flat rendering. Anyway, the rendering in its totality (including color separation, colour balance, bokeh, etc.) is more important for me than just sharpness.

ForenSeil · Joined: 15 Apr 2011 Posts: 2726 Location: Kiel, Germany.

For me sharpness is only about how good details are looking.
So contrast, resolution and colors/tones are more imortant than accurate and clean borders of objects

The pic by Pancolart does not look sharp to me. The sharpening killed many details.

This pic I made today looks sharp to me (no PP)

jito · Joined: 29 Nov 2011 Posts: 113

I do think sharpness is the most relevant characteristic of lenses.

I've used sharpning a couple of times but I don't think sharpening should be included in this discussion. There is no way for your computer to know what to sharp and what not to. For example, I used sharpening on a picture of a bird, the smooth edges of the feathers obviously got sharpened too. How do you prevent this from happening? There is just no way. A picture MUST capture a both sharp and smooth edges, IMHO there's no way around softness with post processing.

I think the way you put it, it becomes more a discussion about pixel counting and about what fate do pictures get. But I'm not sure about the usefulness of a 1024px wide picture.

My first digital camera had a 1.3MP sensor which is roughly the size we're talking about and it was clearly not enough resolution for a 10x15cm print. When I upgraded to a 2MP camera, the pictures came out noticeably sharper.

Even the picture you posted, sure it's fine to look at, but I feel like zooming in a bit to see the houses and I can't. If it would be a print, I would sure bring it closer to my eyes to see more detail, and then we hit the resolution limitation again.

I'm not a megapixel sucker, my camera has a 12MP sensor and I usually don't even use the maximum resolution. But in a couple of occasions, it could be nice to have more resolution so I could crop more. In those situations sharpness is essential. Maybe it's not visible at 1MP, but at 3MP, I ensure you that my canon kit lens is noticeably soft. Add some cropping and there you have it, you reach the lens sharpness limitation.

visualopsins · Expire: 2025-04-11

jjphoto · Joined: 17 Mar 2009 Posts: 406

Sharpness is cheap and only a slider away but you can't make resolution no matter what you do. It's either there or it's not, at least at the optically challenging end of the aperture range, ie wide open.

woodrim · Joined: 14 Jan 2010 Posts: 4060 Location: Charleston

This group has a keen ability to complicate subjects. Pancolart: I understood your post to recognize the different perceptions people have and you're looking for examples from us that fall within those perceptions. One thing I've realized just recently is that my images aren't showing up as sharp in my pbase. Since I've only just now recognized it, I wonder if they've changed their compression or resizing methods recently. To save space and expense, I had always selected an option there that resized my uploads to a 800 pixel size. This save space and also discourages people from copying images for other use. I've just started to resize them myself before uploading and notice a considerably better definition. My images will still typically be 800 pixels in the largest direction, but for this posting I'm loading the images directly here in the requested 1024 size. I find that most lenses are pretty sharp, as you said, and even more so when taking close-ups. Here's a few from various lenses that I consider very sharp; are they?

Kram · Joined: 06 Feb 2010 Posts: 1344 Location: Portland, OR

100% crop from Zeiss 60/2.8 Makro-Planar. I think I had two tubes stacked.

I am not overly concerned with sharpness. It's more important to create an interesting image. That said, this is the sharpest lens I own. It would be the next to last lens I'd sell if forced to at gunpoint!

Kram · Joined: 06 Feb 2010 Posts: 1344 Location: Portland, OR

Woodrim, they all look sharp to me. Maybe the wasp's eye isn't but that tree trunk sure is! What lens was used for the tree trunk?

woodrim · Joined: 14 Jan 2010 Posts: 4060 Location: Charleston

Kram: The tree bark-art is from one of my most recent additions, the Meyer Lydith. I was surprised how sharp it is. I may post some other pictures from it soon.

Orio · Expire: 2012-12-04

poilu · Expire: 2019-08-29